Phantom Lock
by Hawkblade
Summary: Au Story to the Interference with NewbieSpud's permission. It's Alex Karsath's birthday today and he's looking after his sister Erica. And the clock counts ever down to the moment when things go totally wrong.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: Well, Hawkblade here. I'm giving you guys one hell of a sign before badgering me: I did not write this fanfic. This fanfic is written by a good friend of mine, and since she doesn't have a account, I offered to put this story up. Now, to the Disclaimer!

Disclaimer: Alex Karsath, Erica Karsath belong to Alexander Karsath (Newbie-Spud); Gregory Zivaku belongs to Gregzilla; Sephiros belongs to Square Enix. This story idea belongs to Umiyuri Papaeyra of the Interference Legends site. I own nothing... yet!

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Fifteen-year-old Alex yawned and hit the button on the top of his alarm clock. Today was the day, his birthday. And although most kids would have spent their holidays moping around and sleeping in, wasting around the house by playing video games, eating, surfing the net and sometimes going out, if only to play a quick game of baseball, he would spend it completely differently than those people. Although... this 'differently' actually dismissed the regular commodity of presents. Today, he was going to do the one thing most kids would never think of doing on their holidays:

He was going to hang out with his own younger sister.

He stretched, got out of bed and immediately fell on the floor, his face making contact with the wood panelling. He pushed himself up, rubbing his face and grumbling, then began slipping his day's shirt and pants on. It was nothing too special, mind: just some short trousers, a black long-sleeved shirt and wrist bands. Alex had never been one to dress according to the weather; as the sun was beating down and he would certainly sizzle like a strip of bacon in a frying pan. Alex would not find it very comforting to be compared to a piece of pig meat, but the message was very clear. Alex would need to at least wear a hat or something white and reflective in order to keep the cool.

Cool, however, was _not_ something that was very commonly on his agenda. The best description he had ever had of himself was, 'He thinks cool is a temperature reading and by "I threw on whatever was lying around", he means "on the floor, but I turned the underwear inside-out first."' and it wasn't one he liked, but it certainly suited him. After all, he was pretty much a self-confessed nerd with a love of role-play video games, sea salt ice cream and bed hair. None of those were very cool (except for bed hair).

And today, if any noise was made, his only chances of becoming popular were completely shot down by firing squad, the body picked up and thrown on the fire. Any days with pre-teenage girls were always those days he would try to stay low-profile. He'd keep in the shadows - hence the dark outfit - and not draw attention to himself. Pity his sister was the least low-profile person he had ever met. And her name was...

...Erica. Loud, obnoxious and the biggest _FullMetal Alchemist_ fan-girl you would ever meet in your entire life, if you were unfortunate enough to. Most of the time he was embarrassed to be around her. But underneath her particularly damaging exterior was a sweet, caring soul. This was what Alex always tried to reach for. There were times she would become completely quiet, very thoughtful and coated in cherry-flavoured zen with no added sugar. Those were the times he wished his sister was always around to talk about. Whatever her problem was, it didn't last long, though. She'd spring back up without warning and soon he'd wish he were never born.

The main problem with the girl was not her filling but her wrapping paper and, with him around her for the entire day, that wrapping paper was sure to be bright pink and covered in fluffy white bunny rabbits. In other words, today she would be as hyper as a hummingbird on magic mushrooms.

The only reason he was taking his sister out with him was because of his mother. Ms Karsath was at work for the early morning and had been for most of the night. To give her a rest, he'd offered to take himself and Erica off her hands. Nothing could _possibly_ go wrong...

...right?

"Alexander?" He looked up from the breakfast table. His grandfather Sephiros sat at the other end.

"Uhh..." He looked down at his corn flakes. He had never been on very good terms with his grandfather. The man had taken one look at him when he was five and told him that he needed a lot of work, otherwise he wouldn't be able to follow the Karsath family tradition, whatever that meant. Every weekend, Alex had been sent down to the local fencing club to train in the handling of a sword. Sephiros himself was a champion at the sport, and also knew how to kill a man with one quick movement of his wrists.

And, as always, he had never approved of him no matter how skilled he had gotten. Sometimes it made the teenager wonder what was really to gain in a world where you climbed until your hands and feet got sore and yet everybody still was able to look down upon you.

His lack of articulation made Sephiros draw a worried breath. "Snap out of it, young man," he said. Immediately, Alex stood to attention, catching his spoon on its handle and sending it onto the floor in the process. Sephiros sighed again as the boy sheepishly dove down to pick the utensil back up from the rug and reseated himself. "It is your fifteenth birthday, and the sign that you are ready to take on the burden of this small family." Alex blinked. Burden... he'd never heard of any burden from his mother. "A long line of Karsaths has proceeded you, and all males of the family have been trained from a young age to their fifteenth birthday. You have undergone the same hard work."

Once again, he blinked. Was this the news he had been awaiting? "You mean... it's all done with?" he asked, and Sephiros shook his head.

"The burden is to be placed upon your shoulders tonight." A quick look to the window and Alex already found himself asking whether the man was insane. There was still more work to be done... but training should have been over. The new challenges would have to wait.

"But I can't make it, remember?" he said. The elder raised an eyebrow. "I'm letting mom relax for the day. Me and Erica are going to be out until ten o' clock, when mom's next shift starts."  
Sephiros closed his eyes. "It will be passed on no matter what plans you may have had for tonight." Alex groaned. "It must be given to the firstborn male on his fifteenth birthday, _no_ older, _no_ younger and _no_ excuses."

Erica stood outside the door already. She was dressed in what could only be described by an onlooker as 'cheerleader garb'. Bright, matching clothing with the Portland Junior High shield tattooed on the front, she stood in a white long-sleeved jumper, a white mini-skirt lined with green and tall socks with pure white trainers on top. Her long blonde hair was held back by a red Alice band and her pale brown eyes shimmered warmly. Meanwhile, Alex stepped out of the door, his clothing a complete contrast to hers.

"Alex! How are you going to cool down?" she asked him, scolding her older brother.

He simply shrugged. "I dunno. We're not going to be staying out so long anyway," he reported. "Grandpa said he's 'passing down the burden of the family' to me, and tonight. I think that means going home pretty early tonight instead of what we had planned."

At this, she sank down into a state of... unhappiness. To put it rather _lightly_. "Oh, come _on_!" she whined, and he made a point of covering his ears with his palms. The sun was still rising and it made a halo effect around the head of Erica. He would have considered her an angel if it wasn't for the sulking look of her puppy-dog eyes and the hefty pout crossing over her face. "You know, you don't have to listen to Gramps, do you? Maybe he can give you this burden later or something!"

He crossed his arms. "Not according to him," he said, and placed his fingers to his head, reciting. "'It must be given to the firstborn male on his fifteenth birthday, _no_ older, _no_ younger and _no_ excuses.' It's gotta be tonight."

She grumbled, and they climbed one after the other down the fire escape ladder to the next landing, and then down the next ladder to the next landing. The process was very much like a good game of Donkey Kong, except they weren't a Italian-American plumber madly jumping over barrels and bombs in order to gain points and save their girlfriend from a giant cartoon ape. And the fact that they were climbing down instead of up also helped the concept fail, even if it was just a tiny little bit.

The clacking sound of their shoes upon the rusting iron became music to Alex's ears for some unknown reason. It was melodic, the perfectly timed movements of their hands and feet and the percussion created by the noise. He stopped, listening to the hypnotic beat as Erica continued downwards. It was so loud in his ears, even the sound of his own heart was drowned out when it came to that ticking. Almost like a clock... like a countdown to tonight... Somehow, he concentrated solely on the noise, missing the fact that his little sister was now down on the next landing.

The summer sky brought him slowly back to his senses, making him blink several times from its brightness. It was a clear enough day and the heat was already beating down upon them. Tiny, rough strips of cloud dotted the sky, nothing too grey but nothing too white, all pointing towards the prevailing sun like a hail of hazy arrows. The sky blazed blood red, although it was not too early in the morning. It was a sign of something bad to come, he noted. They predicted bad weather, terrible rainstorms. Red skies were the skies of war in his mind and, although he was only fifteen years old to the day, something in his mind told him it was a war nobody, not even he, and would be left out of.

A sudden cry from Erica alerted him and he looked down over the side, bracing himself in the process. He was made to be able to fight, not to climb, and the height made him feel _very_ dizzy. She was waving from two floors down. "Hey, get down here, daydreamer!" With a slight shudder he pressed away from the edge and gulped, throwing himself down another few ladders to reach her.

At least, that was the plan, anyway. Once again the beat caught him mid-climb, and he stopped, it still echoing through his mind. She put her hands on her hips, her cheeks inflating as she clambered up and tugged on the bottom of his shirt. He snapped and looked down at her, before continuing down.

"Ah, out in the open air!" she cheered and Alex, for once, had to admit she was onto something for once. It felt good that he was alive and breathing clean air instead of sitting around a stuffy bedroom while writing his fan-fiction and playing on his PlayStation Two. The room didn't even have good air conditioning.

He allowed himself a smile as he stretched his arms above his head and almost immediately bumped into somebody. He backed up and quickly apologized. The stranger simply looked at him. Tall, it was a pale boy with scruffy black hair. Blue locks hung down one side of his face. His sky-colour eyes peered through a pair of brown-tinted sunglasses. His dress was a yellow leather buttoned coat and brown shorts. He looked slightly imposing, but he wasn't anything too terrifying in appearance.

No, the reason Alex was now wary of him was the way his bored eyes were staring at him. They cut like lasers into his own. It felt as if his mind were being probed. He felt himself grow strangely weaker, and paralysis took his body. Suddenly, the beating footsteps took over his mind again. What was going on...?

"Hello, earth to Alex?" Erica tapped him on the shoulder. "Is it your zone-out day or something?"

Alex shook his head. "Sorry, sis. I don't know what's going on either," he said, brow furrowed and looked back at the black-haired boy. "Sorry, but do I have something on my face?" The other said nothing, instead simply smirking and turning around. Needless to say, Alex did not like being ignored. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

"You have no need to." Alex took a sharp intake of breath as the boy actually spoke to him. Funny, he didn't seem like the type to talk about things, like... anything. "After all, tonight at eleven o' clock," he raised his hand and snapped his fingers mysteriously, suddenly catching his attention like a bird in a cage, "you will not be able to speak."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Alex exclaimed. She gripped onto his waist, either protectively or using him as a human shield; it didn't matter as long as she was still there. "What, are you going to _kill_ me or something!?" He narrowed his eyes as the mystery man walked away, hands in his pockets. The sunglasses shone darkly, and Alex and his sister turned away. The snap of the fingers still held him entranced and he stared up at the sky, waiting.

Stop. Smirk. Disappear. "I found him, the link of the worlds..."

That night, Alex leaned back against the brick wall of the flat and yawned, until his sister thrust a muffin they had bought that morning into his mouth and he nearly choked to death trying to chew and swallow it. It was five minutes to eleven. They were intentionally playing hooky from the burden of the family. Besides, they were just a block away from the apartment. They could get there before midnight if they ever managed to lose track of the time which, judging by her glowing digital watch, was not going to be a easy task.

"Are you so sure about this?" he asked her, and she looked at him from the small wall bordering the raised flower bed. Her smile was almost addictive. Somehow he couldn't help but grin brightly himself.

She stretched out, something that if left unchecked would certainly have some perverts staring at her hungrily, and stopped mid-way, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "Are you kidding me?" she said, gobsmacked. "I'm so sure about this that if I'm wrong I'll eat my shoes!" Not a usual bet from her but, then again, there was no strange scheme the girl wouldn't concoct. The poor older sibling crossed his arms and gave her a very strange look.

"So you're betting your shoes on... what?"

She shrugged. "On Gramps telling us off."

"So in order to prove-"

"That you _don't_ have to listen to him!"

"In order to prove that I _don't_ have to listen to our grandfather Sephiros Karsath, the great Swordsmaster Of Darkness, if he tells us off for not coming home on time you're going to eat faux leather." A nod signalled a positive answer. "So, what happens if he gives us a swordful instead of a mouthful?"

She held up a large broom. "Easy," she said. "You get into a fencing match, I flee from battle, you use your super-awesome battle skills to wear Gramps out, and I get to eat a wig instead of my shoes. Easy as blueberry pie."

He raised an eyebrow at the nonsensical rubbish forming from his own little sister's mouth. If she had gotten the looks, he had definitely received the brains at the very least. Sure, she was blonde, pretty and altogether rather adorable in the way that it made even him sometimes turn to mush. She looked like the perfect mix of their two relatively attractive parents, although slightly muddy eyes served to ruin that. She was the one they were very proud of, even though she only scraped through school. Meanwhile, he was absorbed in video games, books, he aced most challenges thrown at him and he wasn't really anything to look at. He was just a regular brunet with dark eyes and a less than jumpy attitude. He gained less of a positive note in response for his almost cliché bed temper.

And because of this, all of her plans were doomed to fail while he found the true result to be a little unnerving. He couldn't see any way in which he could win any battle, whether it was fencing, fist-fight or even good old Snap, versus the man he had dubbed the One Winged Angel. He was going to be nothing more than a slice of toast. With butter. And maybe some marmalade... "And how does this work with me _living_ afterwards?"

She mimed stroking a beard. Of course, being a thirteen-year-old girl meant she didn't have a beard to stroke. "Hmm... I thought you were pretty good at sword fighting, actually..."

He tried not to laugh. "Pretty good versus the super-swordsmaster," he said to himself jokingly, although it wasn't meant to come out like that at all. "It sounds like a very bad wrestling match. And a very painful one too."

"Just think of it like a boss battle!" she said, and he sighed. He would never get anything that made sense from his little sister as long as she was not legally considered insane. He needed to take her to a clinic or something to get her sorted out. "Yeah, you know, when the bad guys always have, like, three-hundred times more HP than you, and they have the most über-cool attacks that rain fire on your head and set your butt on fire and throw miniature sculptures of Christ the Redeemer at your back when the timing's just perfect, and according to them you're always considered worthless in comparison, and-"

"Shut it." He closed his eyes and sighed. He was always very touchy about these things. When told he was worthless he was prone to lash out at whoever was telling him that, be they fictional and in video games or living and breathing and being. She knew that well herself; why wasn't she respecting that fact?  
She crossed her arms, and her watch started beeping in the manner of the chimes of Big Ben: one for every hour passed. And on a twenty-four hour clock, that was a lot of beeping. She gasped, a little surprised, and looked down at it. "Twenty-three zero." She suddenly looked up at her brother, and gasped. "Alex?"

He stood there, completely silent. She couldn't catch a glimpse of his eyes as his head was bowed, but if she could she would see that they were completely blank. The beeping held him prisoner; as if chains were attached to his arms and legs he was completely taken by the noise. If she tried anything dangerous right now while the watch was counting twenty-three hours, he would remain completely immobile and unaware of anything going on around him.

"Alex? Wake up... Alex! ALEX!"

Sephiros looked up from his coffee. He had fallen asleep partway through the day. His daughter must have woken him up, but he couldn't remember. It was quiet outside. Not even a bird's wings could be heard. The streets were completely empty. All that he could hear was the noise of the watch beeping from over in the next street. He got up, abandoning his hot drink, and made his way to the window. The stars were all blinking out, one by one. He closed his eyes.

"It's time to inherit your destiny, Alexander."

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Well, join me soon for the next chapter. Please R&R, it'd be appreciated by my friend Umiyuri. Sees ya! 


	2. Chapter 2

Hawkblade: I'm here once more for my friend Umiyuri! I think she thanks people for the reviews! Anyway, she's churned out another chap. Also, presenting the disclaimer today is... Sephiros!

Sephiros: Hmph. Alex and Erica Karsath are owned by Newbie-Spud, as is Alex's transformation. From the previous chap, Gregory Zivaku is owned by Gregzilla and I am owned by Square Enix.

HB: Thanks Sephi.

* * *

Alex yawned, getting up from the ground. His head felt a little like _somebody_ had been using a hammer to dig in an electric drill and then played loud music in the background. He rubbed at his eyes to try and chase the sleep out of them, then stared down at his hands, expecting them to be blooded, amputated, handcuffed, covered in sick, holding a rubber chicken; anything that would strike him as being odd. Nothing. His hands were perfectly clean, not a spot or a scratch-

There!

It wasn't something anybody but him would pay much attention to, as it was something he knew just for himself rather than anything that could be spotted by a witness. His hands had been scratched this morning from scraping them across the bars of the fire escape ladder. They had also been very dirty from tripping over earlier today; he hadn't managed to find a public toilet with any soap in the dispensers in order to clean them. But funnily enough, now they were clean as a whistle and glowing with a pale ethereal light. Whatever was going on now wasn't exactly trying to be kind to his eyeballs at the moment.

He shook his head. So his hands were clean. That wasn't really anything haunting, but it did tell him he'd be knocked out and moved afterwards while he was still unconscious. First thing to do was to check that everything was still in place. He checked himself up and down. His clothes were completely spotless as if they'd just been taken to the laundromat. He felt the pockets on his trousers and even checked the hiding place on the inside of his socks to see if anything had been taken. There was nothing in them at all. Had he been robbed? Or had he been kidnapped and had everything confiscated so that he wouldn't be able to use it to escape? Or had everything just been removed so that his clothes could be cleaned?

He then checked his face. He still had a nose in place, as well as two eyes and a mouth. That was a good thing. He patted his own head down even to see if anybody had stuck anything in it, but as he stroked his hand over his hair he realised how soft it felt. Not only had he been given a bath, somebody'd washed him all down and gotten his clothes like brand new. Whoever had managed to kidnap him - he was pretty sure it was that now - had made sure to fully sterilise him first before bringing him here to this place.

Speaking of which... where was here, anyway? He looked around, but all he saw was pure darkness. He was illuminated in the middle of the abyss, just a lonely ghost. But there were no visible lights. How was he even able to see his hands unless there was an external light source?

And that was when it struck him. What if he was his own light source?

He took a single step forward. All around him burst several hundred small birds, rising from the floor with the effect of a tornado and flying around in a circle of terrible confusion. Light bled out from the floor that he had been standing on all this time - it had been hidden from all the birds which, judging by the lights, were a huge flock of doves - in multiple bright colours. Black lines were revealed dividing the shining sections carefully, weaving in and out of each other in confused ways. The design became more and more intricate and the colours faded away from the centre of the platform until it was revealed that he was not just standing on a glass floor; he was standing atop a massive circular stain-glass window.

Whatever the drawing on the window, he couldn't tell for himself what it depicted. He walked over to the edge of the platform, curious. Looking down, there was nothing but black. He was sure that if he stepped out, his foot would collide with air and he would fall to his death. Just standing here was enough to make him grow extremely sick of where he was. After all, who _didn't_ feel vertigo when they were standing over a bottomless pit?

_Do not be afraid of the darkness._

Alex whipped around. Where had the voice come from? As far as he could tell, he was completely alone in dark. He couldn't even speak; he was so scared. And now he had voices in his head! What, was he going insane somehow?

_Open your heart to the darkness and you will see the light._

And that made absolutely no sense. Open your heart to the darkness... what did that mean? He gripped the sides of his head, groaning. Whatever was going on, it needed to stop. It was too confusing!

_Take the darkness and wear it proudly. Take the light and use it well._

He dropped down to his knees at the edge of the platform. He could have chosen a better place, but gravity was always one to win an argument whenever he was involved in it, no matter the opposing party. If he started an argument, falling was sure to finish it.

He rubbed his sore forehead and looked around. Still, no place for anybody to appear, or to be talking. It wasn't really a distinctive voice either. It was generic and he couldn't place a name, a face, an age or even a gender to it. Not only that, he couldn't place a direction from which it was echoing. He did know it was echoing, but it wasn't realistic. It wasn't a hollow echo, a metallic echo or a distant echo. It was close and far at the same time. It was deep and high, innocent and evil, boring and playful. It was like two opposites clashing and mixing. Black and white paint turning grey.

And this darkness and light baloney, how could anybody take it seriously? Surely Sephiros could; after all, he was supposed to be the Swordsmaster Of Darkness-

...had he been talking about this the whole time?

He pushed himself up from the floor. Whatever was going on, he wouldn't understand it down on his knees. Though, another look around and he was pretty sure that his sanity had decided to take a holiday.

And then he saw it coming for him.

He stepped backwards towards the edge of the window.

He nearly fell down as he stumbled stupidly, nearly sending himself into the darkness.

A hand reached out, grabbed him and thrust him into the floor. Strange creatures with large round heads and yellow glowing eyes grew from around him, which had turned into a boiling and bubbling pool of thick black liquid. They began crawling all over him, and as he started to sink in what he could only assume to be tar that had mysteriously been chilled ice cold so that every second was misery, he held out his hand to the nothingness.

And someone took it, pulling him up, but he fell unconscious before he could see the face...

KHKHKH

The creatures began dragging the body away and carved through it, hungrily searching for the girl's heart. Black hands with red claws dived into her chest and lifted out something glowing purplish-pink just as the twenty-third bleep sounded out-

"_Stop it._" They turned it, to see the boy who had been leaning against the wall. But it wasn't him anymore. Whereas the boy had been brunet with dull hazel eyes, both of these features had become a bright emerald green. His skin was paler, and seemed to catch the moonlight a little more brightly, causing them to need to shield their delicate bulging eyes. His clothing was also different: his black shirt was now covered by a green breastplate and shoulder guards, armour also on his abdomen, wrists and shins. He donned a headpiece resembling a bike helmet. His shorts had been exchanged for leggings and his feet had toy-like boots. He now bore leather fingerless gloves.

One of the creatures stepped forward, scanning the stranger thoroughly. He tipped his head at the little guy, and knelt down to look at him. As the tiny little helmeted demon wandered closely, he gave a small smirk and held his hand out to him.

"_You don't look so bad, do you?_" he baby-talked the animal. "_Aww... come here, buddy, come on... come on, don't be shy now!_"

It foolishly took it.

Within a few seconds, it was all over for the black monster. The boy whipped out a gold and black shield and slashed through the creature with the razor-sharp edge of the weapon. The creature burst into dark smoke, a shimmering pink, heart-shaped object hovering out of the littered remnants of its body and fading into the air. The others glared viciously and suddenly swarmed. Dozens of them started appearing from the shadows, creeping out into the open. The girl's body was overrun, and the verdant almost cried - almost. There wasn't any hope left for her. She was gone.

Or was she? He could see, past the throngs, something shining. A heart? He had to bet on it; right now he was outnumbered, and it wouldn't do well for him to battle on a whim. Somebody's life was at stake here, and so would be the lives of hundreds of others in the city if he didn't do something right now. He got into a defensive stance, legs apart and holding his shield in his right hand, his left clenched. Oh, somebody was gonna be happy tonight!

The black ones with antennae and chubby bodies took to the fight first, sinking into the ground. They crept along the floor, completely two-dimensional and almost invisible against the paving slabs in the night. The teenager looked around, lax, before suddenly the things leapt up from the ground. Grinning, he sent the blade edge through all five of these 'underfoot-soldiers', causing the other animals to go insane.

Next came a row of flying enemies. They were tiny things like birds in brightly coloured robes and little brown hats. They all wore the same symbol of a blood red heart filled with thorns. He looked up at them with a strange face of confusion. One of them flew down and suddenly released an attack: a meteor shower came crashing down on his head. He brought up the shield just in time to parry the attack, wincing, giving another in yellow the chance to conjure an electrical surge. He dodged the white lightning and threw himself accidentally into the middle of the group. He rolled onto his back in the centre of all the monsters, his head between the girl's ankles. Just the perfect place to see her knickers.

"_Eh, heh, heh..._" he laughed nervously, trying so hard not to look up. He looked down instead, or as best as he could, to be honest, and around at the strange monsters. They all blinked. Simultaneously. He rolled his eyes. He was already tired of them. They all had the exact same faces.

They leapt, all at once. He held the shield up and yelled, "_Magnet!_" The wind started to blow around him and a few of the creatures were swept up off their feet into a black swirling vortex. He quickly hoisted himself up onto his feet and followed up with, "_Thunder!_" The same burst of lightning pulsed through the black hole and turned all of them into rubble. Now he just had another fifty to dispose of. Easy as pie, right? And he was totally, completely...

...wrong.

He squatted examined his enemies. All were similar creatures in that they had the same black face, bulging yellow eyes and pudgy limbs. The most basic-looking and easiest to destroy were the teddy bear-like ones. They had huge twisted antennae and little fat stomachs, and were about the size of a small dog. And with the ability to become flat and discreet, they could only be called Shadows. Hey, it was the only thing he could think of at the moment. He was only a kid!

Next were those little armoured ones. He was afraid to call them 'Knights' - after all, it wasn't like wearing armour made you a knight. You could have easily been a cosplayer. Also part of their costume apart from the leaf-shaped eye-guard and helmet was the blue bodysuit. It made them look brighter, which was definitely what ruled it out as being one of those Shadows playing dress-up. However, they were easily weak and the armour did little to them other than improve their appearance, so he guessed they could be Soldiers.

After that were the different coloured ones. Now those ones were a real piece of work. Come to think of it, one was hovering above him right now... argh! He jumped up and dodged the oncoming hail, hiding behind the tree to get a better look at them. They all had different types of attacks and they all related to the weather. The meteor one was a bit tricky but it looked like a Fire-element attack; meaning the red one could be called something like... Flame Mage? He had no idea, to be honest.

Now, hail represented ice, and an ice attack would be Blizzard-element, if he remembered his video game elements rightly. So he'd nickname that one the Freeze Mage for right now. And right up after that was the yellow one with the Thunder-type attack. Thunder was the element he was most used to, to be honest. He'd seen a lot of people use Thunder magic in his time. But he'd need something good to call it... Static Mage it was until further notice.

And the green one - wait, what was the green one's ability?

Just as he thought that, he spotted the heart in the river of black. He needed it before the things consumed it; he didn't want the girl to become one of them! He ran out into the street and into the fray, dragging the shield along as he did so. The verdant then threw it forward like a discus, it ripping through the bodies of several of the monsters. One of the Static Mages was caught in the blow and he cheered. Finally, a hit!

Then the green one floated along. His eyes went large as it was surrounded by a green glow, shedding it onto the Static Mage. After all that trouble performing his Strike Raid attack, the Static Mage flew forward and began charging up a storm. He dodged out of the way quickly as the lightning hit the floor, twice as powerful as it had been before. It was so strong some of the destructive waves that it created in its path managed to wipe out a few of the Shadows beneath his feet. One spark crept up to his leg and he was given the shock of a lifetime as the thing floated down to hypothetically laugh in his face. Some of the Soldiers gathered, ready to tackle him down and take his heart.

The green mage's element was Cure.

He had to think fast here. It was only a matter of time before something happened to him. Crouching, he held onto his shield by the edge, cutting his hand as he did so. He gripped on hard, and smirked. "_It's show-time._"

He kicked off into a massive pirouette, spinning as fast as he could. The blade on the side of the shield began to shatter the black creatures as they tried to jump on and slow him down. He scoffed, although it was lost in the speed of his new attack idea. They never learned, did they? The death of one of them just made no difference.

So that was when he worked it out. Maybe the lost ones weren't dead; they weren't alive. And if they took the heart and changed it into one of them, was that all they were? Creatures that were made from hearts and didn't have one of their own? It wasn't the most pleasant concept but, hey, it was the best idea he'd had in eternity. Those things only had the desire of ripping people apart. They were nothing but shredded determination, recycled into a physical form. All they wanted was the feelings to go with it. So did that mean that they tried to kill because they needed a body?

Whatever, he thought. It wasn't time for philosophies, especially when there was a life at stake. He needed to catch that heart before it disappeared from him! He sped on, hacking away wherever he could. The creatures were unstable and disappeared as soon as the weapon touched them. It wasn't right: they had no life and no way to escape. But it could have been just that the weapon could handle magical energy. That could have been the only reason he could dent their forces at all, let alone destroy them.

However, if they weren't so attracted to the shield, maybe they wouldn't die, he reasoned. He was right; the determination they embodied was that of the need to continue living even in the face of adversity. When adversity came bouncing through in green armour with a huge smirk, they stood in the way of it defiantly.

Tearing through a few more of the creatures, he reached the shining light that was the girl's heart. Its glow was weakening and black tendrils were beginning to creep up over it. A few seconds and it would become one of the armada of Shadow animals crawling forth to attack him. He had to act fast. The one who had been carrying it was no more, but before it had met its fortunate demise it had managed to carry the heart over and out into the street. Now he was standing on the road, looking to all the world like an abandoned parader. The things' antennae began to twitch, sensing more lives in the community, and in a huge wave they began their march into the open moonlight.

The boy began to panic severely. The girl was almost lost, but the other people living there were also in danger, and they needed protecting just as much as her. After all, everybody was completely equal, no matter what the situation. They all needed to be saved.

He looked around. Maybe, if he restored her heart before it happened - no, he couldn't make it.

...could he?

He broke into a wide-paced sprint, desperately heading towards the girl. He needed to reach her fast, otherwise everybody else would be in the same condition. The Static, Freeze, Cure and Flame Mages turned around and began chasing him, making him speed up. He wasn't going to be electrocuted now of all times! The shield lay unsteady in his hands. He looked around, trying to think, then yelled "_Fire!_" at the Freeze Mage, all while heading towards her limp body. The heart was fading, but he didn't slow down. Those Mages weren't going to take her away yet!

He dived down next to her, holding the heart underneath his chest as the Freeze and Static Mages started attacking his back. First the shock, which then proceeded to disable his left arm - the one with the heart - then the sudden hail raining down on his head and sending pain straight to his skull. He winced. But it was going to be all worth the trouble.

Slowly, he reached his free right arm out and pulled her closer. Her hair was short and black, and her skin was quite dark, almost as if it was tanned. A vision of her with slightly paler skin and long blonde hair entered his mind for a moment coupled with a sound - "ri-kah" - but he shook it off. She needed the heart back. It belonged to her. Reaching back underneath himself for the heart, he then continued to jam it into her chest, the Static Mage then paralysing his second arm before anything else could happen.

Turning around, a sliver of glimmering iron caught his eye-

_slash!_

-and he looked back to see a man with flowing silver hair and a thin, long katana blade. Darkness whipped around him, the hearts of a hundred unfortunate souls now lost to the winds. A large, silky midnight blue wing rose up from the stranger's right shoulder blade, a spike upon the main joint.

He spoke. "This is what you get when you directly disobey me!" he said curtly, causing him to jump and quiver behind his shield before recognising exactly who was facing him.

It was Sephiros.

* * *

HB: See ya for the next chapter! 


	3. Chapter 3

HB: Can't talk. Disclaimer Alex.

Alex: Myself, Joumae and Erica are owned by Newbie-Spud. The guy from the first chap is owned by Gregzilla and Sephiros is owned by Square Enix, as is the Keyblade and Heartless.

* * *

"You disobeyed a direct order and stayed out without my permission," the Swordsmaster Of Darkness reiterated while the verdant sat at the Karsath kitchen table. "You deliberately ignored me and you paid the price!" 

The boy stood up from his seat. "_I did not disobey you!_" he cried. His voice was tense. He felt threatened every time he was near Sephiros. Although the two had only been clashing swords for a few minutes now, it still felt like he had been nagged for years. Forty years, to be precise. The anger felt like it had been building up for decades, which was not a good feeling, especially when your consciousness had only been active for something in the space of ten minutes. "_In fact, I have no idea what's going on!_" He needed his answers; Sephiros had them. It was a simple equation. "_Those creatures were threatening her, and I had to do something!_"

"You were lucky that your deoxyribonucleic acid activated when it _did_!" the silver-haired man argued back, and he jumped, settling into the chair slowly. "Without that change, you could have lost your heart."

His breath hitched. His heart... what in the honest name of hell was he talking about? "_What... what do you mean?_" he asked.

Sephiros slapped himself in the face. As if you couldn't add two and two together to make four. This was just a waste of his time. Pity the entire world depended on this teenage child. "When you saw Erica fall-"

"_Erica? Her name was Erica?_" he butt in again, walking over to the counter. The winged man had placed the girl's body on the table. Her hair was back to blond and she looked cold again. He stroked the side of her face, questioning himself. "_Where have I heard that name before?_"

A flash behind him made him turn back around. Sephiros waved the digital camera in his face. "Your mother asked me to take a picture of you when it happened," he explained. "She's been awaiting this day a long time, Alexander."

The boy, or rather, 'Alexander', looked at him. "_My mother..._" he muttered. "_I don't remember... since when did I have a mother? I've always been on my own in the darkness... there was nobody there! Come to think of it, what day has she been awaiting, anyway!?_" He took on a defensive stance, holding the shield in front of his face in an attempt to hide. "_What's going on? And why are you calling me Alexander? That's not my name!_"

A vein in Sephiros's temple began to bulge. Something was dreadfully wrong. Today, Alexander Ephraim Karsath was going to become the master of a weapon called the Keyblade. But this shield was definitely not a Keyblade. It had a gold and lush dark green design with blades along the egde, bearing the symbol of the Heartless and marked with a keyhole in the middle. The gold curled around the velvety-looking centre, framing it, and was topped with a crown. It was something he'd never seen before. Somewhere along the way, the higher powers had designated somebody other than a Karsath as the Keybearer, and to be using a shield was very demoting to Sephiros. His family was supposed to protect people; how could they do this with just a shield!?

'Alexander' followed his eyeline towards the weapon and gasped. He too had noticed the icon upon the object. But, it was the same as those monsters. He didn't get this. He wasn't one of those... demons! Demons, yes, that was the only world for them. Disastrous creatures sucking away at the last vestiges of society, unraveling the threads of balance forever.

Well, that's what he thought, anyway.

He shook his head. "_Can you just explain this to me?_" he asked, voice biting worse than Sephiros's had been just a moment ago. "_Then I'll leave. You can have this stupid body back when I get exactly what's going on._"

For once, Sephiros did not have any information to hide. "I'm sorry," he said, crossing his arms. "There is nothing that I know on the subject of this failure to continue the family tradition, Alexander. I finally fail." After all, he had no idea what was going on.

'Alexander' shrugged. "_I only expected that much anyway, Sephiros._" A tense wing. "_So I guess I'm going. _Alexander_ can come back to reality from his little hovel inside his head._" And with that, the boy's eyes went blank, and he fell to the floor like a puppet that's strings had been let go for the last time. Down on his knees first, then face-down onto the kitchen's tiled floor. Sephiros knelt down beside the body, feeling for its pulse on its neck. It had stopped. Then, all of a sudden, it surged up again.

"Hmm... so Joumae really is here." He smiled. If you knew Sephiros well, then you knew to run.

KHKHKH

By now, Alex was sick and tired of this place. He had been sitting on a pale skin-colour area of the window-platform-thing for a while now, with nothing to do but stare into the darkness. After the thing had attacked him and a short blackout (he only usually remained unconscious for about five seconds anyway), he had returned to the same area, although the colour scheme had changed slightly. Whereas the floor's basic theme had been light blue, now it had transformed to dark red.

And that made all the difference.

...right.

He stood up and sighed for what was probably the eightieth time that minute. There was nothing to do here! ...Well, nothing interesting or in his character anyway. There was only one thing he could do with the things he had without falling to sleep and to be honest it didn't really take his fancy. Hey, he wasn't going to do _that_ when his sister was lost and probably dead! He needed to know what had happened to her, where she was, anything! It was a rare confession but he really did care for Erica, even when she threw them into the very heart of danger.

And hey, that may have been exactly what she had done today, but it was his fault. He was the one who kept going all existential at ticking clocks and thumping feet and beeping watches. There really was something wrong with him. Erica was actually right for once. He had no idea what on earth was going on with his brain at all, and now he'd landed in this mess!

"Huh?" He stood up, eying the faint green spark ahead. His first thought was a very unconventional, _Sweet, something's actually happening!_ followed by a more convential, _Wait... what the heck!?_ He looked around. There was still nothing else. He guessed he had to go and see what it was.

He'd gotten halfway when he'd suddenly reached the concept that maybe he was dead. Either that or this was a test. Maybe someone - or something - was actually lording over the space, and knocking him out then restoring him to a long time of boredness only to place something in the middle of the room was a test of temptation. Yep. Maybe he shouldn't go to the light, he should just stay where he was. Or maybe it could have been a test of tolerance, maybe for the eternal darkness, or the nothing to do or whatever. Or a test of desperation, to which the way to lose would be to do that one thing he could do when there were no witnesses because there was nothing else in the world.

And no, that does _not_ mean think, sleep or sing nursery rhymes. Every boy in the world knows exactly what I'm talking about. And Alex still did not want to do that, especially when that light caught his eyes.

Wandering forward a little more, he reasoned with himself. Hey, there may have been the chance that it actually wasn't a test, that this really was going to be it for the rest of forever. It could probably even help him escape this entire mess into the real world, if you remembered that he had gotten here listening to a steady beat. And right now a steady beat was indeed going on beneath his feet. He narrowed his eyes, confused, and walked forward. The beat's volume was increasing as he walked. Fully confused, he kept going.

Now as he was nearing the light, he could tell what it was. The rhythm was a heart going, _b'dun, b'dun, b'dun, b'dun_ in his ears. Now he was really confused. He could hear this one heartbeat even though he was the only person there. Thinking quickly, he placed a finger to his wrist, checking his pulse. Then, for the first time in this place, he spoke. "Holy..."

He had no pulse. His heart was completely silent in here.

He whipped around, checking up the area again. There was nobody else there. Now he was really panicking to himself. How could he have no heartbeat? It was absurd. He was alive, wasn't he? He was walking around, thinking, feeling, speaking, breathing-

-wait, check the last one. He placed a hand to his chest, his metaphysical heart sinking as his real organ lay silent inside. He tried taking in a breath of air.

His chest didn't rise. He tried again. Nothing at all. He shook himself, grinned a huge insane smirk and began singing, "_I'm a little teapot, short and stout! This is my handle; this is my spout! When I boil over hear me shout, tip me over and pour me out!_" His voice echoed around the room as he began again, leaving no spaces whatsoever. "_I'm a little teapot, short and stout! This is my handle; this is my spout! When I boil over hear me shout, tip me open and pour me out! I'm a little teapot, short and stout! Here is my handle; here is my spout! When I boil over hear me shout, tip me open and pour me out!_" He stopped, confused, and began again, this time singing the song faster and four times over.

Normally, he would have had to breathe around ten times during that song, and that would have been on the first three choruses. He wasn't an accomplished singer and he clearly didn't have the lung capacity to try anything more than the opening bars of 'Twinkle Twinkle', let alone what he had just done. Not only that, there was no exertion at all. He didn't feel out of breath, he wasn't about to drop to the floor, his chest wasn't excruciatingly tight and he wasn't weary all over. He felt like, somehow, he could continue singing for eternity.

Eternity... was he dead? He couldn't tell. Well, if he was dead, that meant one thing - he couldn't get hurt by the light, even if it tried. He paused, then threw himself into the green.

KHKHKH

So this is Alexander, is it?

Huh? Who are you?

Hey, you answered! Guess you're him, then!

KHKHKH

And with a huge thud, Alex - the real Alex - fell back into his own consciousness. Pushing himself up, he could have sworn to himself. He'd never heard of anybody falling into consciousness before, only out of it, and right now he didn't want to deny that it was impossible and set a new record for greatest moment of confusion in the world, a seven-point-zero on the weirdness factor scale.

"Alexander?" He looked up to see a ceiling lamp. A bright ceiling lamp. He shielded his eyes. Was this... his kitchen? His grandfather was staring down at him, and a body lying on the counter - a body? There was a hand hanging over the edge of the work-surface that he could see; it was pale and unhealthy. Jumping up, he stared at the limp body of his own younger sister. Right now, he could have died on his feet. Although that would have meant more cleaning the floors later and a reprimand in heaven for littering on the floor - even if it was his own house he was dirtying.

"What happened to Erica?" he asked, forgetting about the fact that he was in reality now. Screw his own life, his little sister was unconscious!

Sephiros gave him a strange glance. Alex looked up at him, caught the bemused expression, and stood his own two ground again. The world was becoming delightfully darker and he felt a little-light headed. His own feet weren't carrying him properly. His lungs started noticing the problem and began yelling to his brain, but that had promptly deactivated the moment that he had spotted Erica.

He rubbed his head. "Dizzy..." His throat was hoarse.

Sephiros noticed the problem, however, slapped him in the face and yelled, "Breathe, you _imbecile_!"

Alex opened his mouth and tried. Suddenly, the black went away and he was back in reality. Wait, that wasn't fair. Erica was hurt, his grandfather was glaring at him and his mother was going to murder him when she got home for not taking proper care of his only sibling. Although, this feeling was overtaken by the shock of finding that his heart was beating again. And that there was air in here, when there wasn't in that mysterious place. Not only that, but he wasn't spacing out to some odd heartbeat thing. The kitchen clock was giving him a hard time but it wasn't causing him to become hypnotised like he had been yesterday... was it yesterday or earlier this morning? He didn't know; what was the time, anyway?

He looked back at the clock, at least trying to read it. It wasn't his fault that God had chosen to make him grow up in the digital revolution, where an altered version of military time was used quite commonly around the world. Let's see... it was about - eleven twenty-seven p.m.? That couldn't be right, could it?

Well, the sky wasn't black in the day and they wouldn't have the streetlights on at a time people could usually see perfectly. There was no such thing as that. And it wasn't like there was an alien invasion.

He shook himself, took a deep breath (A breath! He'd been missing that!) and asked again, this time more forcefully, "What - happened - to - my - sister?"

Sephiros found himself... well, dumbfounded. This wasn't going right at all. When a Karsath received his great burden, he usually received all knowledge of the upcoming storm. Nothing was right. Nothing was like before. "It's something very complicated, Alexander, but for me it's unfurling to be more inexplicable by the second," he began. "Sit down... this may take a long while to explain."

Alex complied. It wasn't like there was anything else he could do, especially when the Swordsmaster Of Darkness was glaring at him. One wrong move and he'd be just another bloodstain on his grandfather's katana blade, the Masamune. It still carried some from old enemies.

Sephiros himself cleared his throat. "Your sister here," to which he gestured to the girl, "has stumbled upon a great secret of the Karsath family. Quite is the nature of that secret that she had become a part of it herself." Alex raised an eyebrow. This wasn't making sense... was it? "You see, Erica tonight was attacked by an entity we call 'Heartless'. Due to this, she lost her heart, but quite thankfully had it returned before the problem escalated."

"Wait!" Alex stood up. "How can she lose her heart and-" He sunk back down into his seat. "Is she... _dead_? Is my little sister dead?"

The elder shook his head. "No," he replied nonchalantly. "It wasn't as so much the organ called a heart as it was the concept. When she lost it, her body fell unconscious, but her mind was still alert of the change. When she awakes, she will remember what happened to her, although she may not understand it. It is a difficult thing to explain to the more scientific and logical members of this reality.

"A person is made of three entities." The younger had to stifle a laugh as the swordsman began counting them off his fingers. However, he could guess that it was the only way to understand. "The body is the essence we see and drives physical endurance and skill. It also gives the base energy needed to fight." Alex held up his left hand, twisting it around to get a good look. This was... body?

"A soul is the essence we talk about concerning intelligence and gives us the ability to plan and to think. It delivers to us an understanding of those things we know so well, like logic." Thoughts ran through his head. Soul? "The mind is also considered part of the soul, although this is not a widely supported theory." He nodded to himself. The body carried and the soul planned.

"The heart, being the final concept, is the essence of the emotions we all feel. It powers our mental endurance, our inner strength. When this gives in, not only do we lose our confidence, but we also risk losing ourselves. This is why Erica needed to have her heart returned." Alex put his hand to his chest. His real heart now beat rapidly inside, trying to pump around the extra oxygen needed to make up for his lack of breathing before. His other heart, the one powering his feelings, was accelerating past this information and still asking the question of what had happened to Erica. He still didn't understand it. How could a lack of feelings make you different like that?

He raised his hand in lieu of being a student. Sephiros nodded. "How could losing your heart... kill you?" he asked, the words still sour in his mouth. He didn't want to believe his sister was gone.

"Losing your heart does not kill you, but leaves the part that is you free to corruption," the man corrected, and he heaved a huge sigh of relief. At least she wasn't gone. But - wait, corruption? "A heart without a body or soul to protect it finds itself vulnerable to the darkness. Both light and darkness act as elements that change where the things in our world stand. And when a heart absorbs darkness, like mine has done on many occasions-" the boy looked up, "-it can be forcibly taken by the Heartless and turned into one of them."

He gulped. Becoming a Heartless sounded less than pleasant.

"This is almost what happened to Erica. However, somebody intervened and returned her heart before it was lost." Sephiros folded his fingers together. "There was only one other person present at the time she was attacked." He gave his grandson a very meaningful eye.

Of course, to his grandson, this wasn't a very good response as it had first seemed. "_What!?_" Alex yelled. "That can't be right! I was unconscious!"

"Not you," Sephiros corrected. "Joumae. A spirit carried through our family by our deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA for short. I used to work with him myself. He exists simply to destroy Heartless; it is his duty now as it was hundreds of years ago."

"I'm supposed to believe I carry a ancient magical fighting spirit through my cells?" Alex said, sceptical as always. "Right..."

_Well, hello to you, too!_

Needless to say, Alexander Ephraim Karsath fell out of his chair.

* * *

HB: See ya! 


	4. Chapter 4

**HB: Yo.**

**Disclaimer: Alex, Joumae, Erica, Other Erica and the Lockshield are Newbie- Spud's. Aeris, the Heartless and Sephiros are Square Enix's.**

* * *

Alex woke up, showered, washed his hair, brushed his teeth, dressed and waited downstairs by the door. His mother had been at work again; he had originally liberated her of Erica to let her get a better day's sleep. She was practically nocturnal, a factor which he knew did not suit the woman at all. She may have been aging, but the years had been extremely kind to her. She didn't deserve to be taking the graveyard shift at a bank dressed up in a stuffy suit while her face looked just as it had done more than fifteen years ago. Since before Alex was born. It was almost humbling. She looked like a china doll and spoke with the tongue of an angel, yet was old enough for crow's feet.

Erica was asleep in her bed. She was still knocked out since last night, and Alexander did not want to disturb the girl now of all times. She was recovering from what sounded like an extremely traumatic experience. It wouldn't be right to cause her any more grief than what she had gone through recently.

The brunet sat on the stairs, thinking, his hair in his face. Now that he noticed them, he crossed his eyes to try and get a better look at the locks now lying over his nose. Before the accident last night, his hair had been less than spiked at the least. In fact, his hair had been mostly pressed down on his head and his fringe hadn't been in his way at all. The only part that had seemed weird were his and Erica's long locks at the sides of their face, but that hadn't really done anything to alienate them. Apart from that fact, they had been just like anybody else - if there was any fair, indiscriminative way in existence that a brunet child could have a blonde sibling.

Now that he noticed, though, it was perked up a considerable bit. Three different pieces in particular had become excessively spiky and folded over his face like a mask, covering his one eye. The back, as well, was fluffed up and he had the distinct feeling somebody was watching him from behind now...

He turned around to see his reflection in the mirror. He was right, his hair was spikier. He grabbed a piece and rather innocently tossed it around, seeing whether he could brush it out of his eyes. He wasn't self-centred, but it was good to be at least a little obsessed about his appearance. He didn't want to look like a total thug, you know. He guessed he had a good position ready when a strangely familiar voice decided to call in on his personal thoughts.

_I reckoned it was better all over your face_, the reflection said, and Alex jumped out of his seat. He stumbled back to the wall, watching as the reflection did the same, falling back onto the plaster and milliner paint. It turned its head, giving a small smirk. Poor Alex let out a cry as the hair (now curled into his face) and eyes suddenly faded into forest green, the clothes becoming strangely armoured. He hurriedly checked himself up.

But nothing had happened. He blinked and gave a confused look to the boy who had possessed his likeness behind the glass.

_Sorry, kiddo_, it apologised, although it sounded sarcastic. Kiddo. Hey, it sounded like it was only a teenager itself - but that may just have been because it was taking his voice and spitting it back at him. _There's little other way to get to talk to you, knucklehead._

Alex flushed, sitting back down on the step. "Great," he mumbled, reaching back up to his head and feeling his skull in a dejected manner. "Now my hair looks even worse."

The reflected body crossed its arms. Unlike Alex, it hadn't sat down, and this he thought to be important. His reflection was alive; how normal could you make that seem? It proved something was deathly wrong. However, to the regular human eye Alex was looking off into some distant corner of his unframed hallway mirror, talking with a voice that didn't exist at all. _Are you kidding me? I think you look _absolutely_ adorable._ It was sniggering away. Reflections did not snigger... did they?

His face began grim. "Listen to me," he said. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my mirror?"

_In your mind_, Alexander, it corrected while tapping its temple lightly, causing the boy to groan further. _What, I can't know your name?_ He looked hurt. What kind of reflection in its right mind looked hurt when its owner was perfectly fine?

Alex was completely confused. He had started off yesterday as just a normal young man with a normal life and a normal hair-cut. Now he was a young man and a ghost in his head with a life of chopping up demonic creatures and, now, a hair-cut so messy that even Jermaine Jackson himself wouldn't dare to have it. 'Square Enix Protagonist' crossed his mind for two seconds before fading again, and he would have scoffed if not for present company. After all, it was totally true.

"Just - just stop," he said, putting up his hands. He sighed, then looked up again. The reflection hadn't broken its gaze once. "Let me ask this again: who are you?"

_Joumae, of course_, it replied, scratching the back of its head sheepishly. _Why, who else exists in that brain of yours, homo moderno?_ The nicknames were beginning to get on Alex's nerves, but he didn't really give any second thoughts on that. Right now, this 'Joumae' character was worrying him more than his sister's condition had been last night.

At least, he'd learnt one thing about it. And this was good news. Sephiros had spoken of Joumae last night. So this was who it was, huh? He had to say, the fashion sense was worse than off. It was obnoxious. Bright green to catch everybody's eye in an urban setting. It _clearly_ wasn't chosen for city wear. It was the kind of green that made you think of jungles and heavy forests, and its name was not American at all. And that meant one thing to Alex: this spirit was obviously very old and very Japanese. As far as Alex could tell though, his family had started in England a long time ago and boarded the Mayflower in the seventeen-hundreds. No Japanese connections whatsoever.

Yep, too confusing.

"So, Joumae..." he yawned. He'd been up most of the night, after all, and right now it was only seven o' clock in the morning. "...you saved my sister's life."

_She's your _sister Joumae said, tipping its head. _Now I feel worse than before._

"...why?" He had the strange feeling he shouldn't have asked.

_Because when I was knocked down I landed between her legs._

Alex's eyes bulged out. "You didn't dare..." he growled.

Joumae put its hands up in defence the exact same way he had done only a few moments ago. _I tried my hardest not to!_ He argued back. _I was pushed by the Heartless! Blame them!_ And it quickly vanished from sight, replaced with his face.

Alex was now up in arms. His reflection had been between his little sister's legs!? That damn-! "Hey, come back here, you insolent, spoiled, incessantly green-"

"Oh!"

Alex looked around to see his mother Aeris standing behind him, the door just a little open with her hand on the handle. She'd only just stepped in. She was only a little taller than Alexander himself. She was forced into what would be an ugly brown suit with a disgusting cocoa tie on a normal person, but she always seemed to make any outfit look good, being such a good-figured individual herself. She had long cherry hair tied back in an equally long braid that fell down to her waist. A red ribbon set to keep it in place. She had a sweet face unspoiled by age and was currently with her mouth hanging open at her son having a very schizophrenic conversation with his own image in the mirror.

He backed up from the glass, scratching the back of his head nervously.

KHKHKH

Aeris gave him a look over.

"Did you mess with your hair _again_?" she asked in her sickeningly sweet voice. "It's all sticking up! I told you not to mess with hair-gel!" She waved her finger in a typical doting fashion. To others it would be like honey, sugar and all things tasty, but Alex knew that behind this exterior could grow a mountain of built-up rage at any second. He scratched the back of his head.

"Hey, it wasn't my fault!" he argued back, though keeping his voice as low as possible. He was already covering his head from any impact. "That stupid Joumae. Can't believe I got stuck with him of all people."

He looked up at her face and received a big surprise. His mother wasn't mad at all - she was smiling very brightly. In fact, he could have called it the greatest smile he'd ever been given; as you could plainly tell, Sephiros was not one for skipping in a field of flowers. More like plough them down with a flaming sword in the middle of an especially humid, very oxygenated summer. The heat and oxygen in combination with the flowers would cause a blaze bigger than any regular forest fire.

He blinked. "You're... you're not yelling at me?" he asked, incredulous. "But Grandpa seemed pretty upset about it."

"That's my father works, sweetie," she explained. Now, nicknames from his mother, he could take. "He's usually very critical like that. Just ignore it!" She began walking into the kitchen, which Sephiros had actually vacated for once. On Thursdays, the man went every morning to his local bingo game. Swordsmaster of Darkness, Mr Serious, still youthful enough to attract twenty-year-olds and he played morning bingo. There was something extremely wrong with that idea.

"How can I?" He rubbed his head. "Apparently I don't match up to family standards for your Key-whatever!"

Aeris jumped and looked back at him, her eyes doeful. "Whatever do you mean, cutie-pie?" she asked.

"This!" Alexander held out his hand and tendrils of darkness covered it. That alone scared Aeris enough to grip onto the edge of the work-surface. Then, the black expanded, until a smoke form appeared. The mysterious shield from the night before formed out of it, and the rest of the darkness faded away. However, Alex was certain he could sense a small piece of it on the surface of the defensive weapon itself; even on the inside too.

Aeris stepped up to the golden and velvet shield, curious for a second. Then Alex turned it around to face her and she gasped. The symbol of the Heartless that had been used to decorate the front gleamed wickedly, making the distressed mother hold her hands to her mouth in horror.

"My son... my son holds the Heartless crest!?" she stuttered.

A burst of light and Joumae was present in the room again. "_Not quite_," he said, and stood up. The hair and eyes had turned startling green again. The clothes hadn't changed, but around him was a slight aura of darkness, one that made the woman strangely tense. "_So I'm guessing that you're this brick-brain's mom?_" He whistled. "_Someone did a lot of work on you, dollface! You an angel or something?_"

Aeris was slightly startled, but calmed down. There was something about this boy that was different from her son, but the same. Maybe it was the possession factor. Or maybe it was how much he actually and still looked like young Alexander had done before he had changed and this little addition to his puberty had made itself known.

At least this explained the hair. "Excuse me, sir," she began, a little hesitantly. She'd been waiting for him all her life. "Is your name... Joumae?"

"_You know me, how come I haven't become acquainted with you yet!?_" Joumae cried, scooting up to the woman straight away. Although it was strange that her son was now hitting on her, she had to admit it wasn't like he really was her son. It was like he was somebody totally different off the streets.

"_You know, my harem could do with a cute girl like you._"

And there came the line that prompted the slap that prompted Joumae to sit down, that prompted Aeris to wear a huge frown and that prompted Joumae to be ashamed for once in his life. For once in his long, horrible and incredibly spiced-up life, he was actually ashamed of himself.

Alex was set back into control, rubbing the side of his face with a look of confusion. This time, he'd just stuck his arm into the light. It was more comfortable that way, and he could hear parts of the situation.

"He knew fulwell that you were my mom and he still tried to hook you up with him?" he said, once again amazed by the spirit's total lack of subtlety. "You've gotta hand it to him - no shame whatsoever."

KHKHKH

A dark, greyed hand reached out from the bed and hit the top of the alarm clock. The disgruntled boy pushed himself out of bed, his long hair heavily pressed down on his head from lying on the pillow. He sighed, walked over to his wardrobe and opened the door, hauling out his regular denim and blue. Meanwhile, a different person stood in the mirror on the inside of the door.

_Are you okay?_ it asked. The boy gave it a sharp glare.

"What do you think? Those dreams again... ever since that accident, there's been these visions... and you yourself!" He closed the door and sat down on the bed, ripping off his nightshirt and pulling on the sweatshirt. He paused, touching the horrible lumpy scar on his shoulder blade, before continuing.

The mirror child stepped into the mirrors bolted onto the front doors of the huge cupboard. _So... I'm just a stranger to you? Even after being here, with you, for so long?_ Its voice was oddly calm for someone... or something, in his position. _Or being here, as you?_

He crossed his arms. "Like it or not, you're _not_ me. No matter how much you try, I still don't know who you are." He stood up, pulling on his jeans, before slipping out of the plainly decorated bedroom. The other remained.

KHKHKH

"You see, Erica was attacked last night," Alex said.

Aeris was shocked and appalled. "I thought you were going to take care of your little sister!" She grabbed the rolled-up newspaper Sephiros had been reading and swiftly hit him over the head with it.

He rubbed the now bruised area. She hit pretty hard for her age of thirty-seven, and mothers at that point of their life were usually rather tough people anyway. "Hey, it wasn't my fault! I kept zoning out!" he complained, although it was no real use to do so. Surely he should have had some control over his distant moments. He should have been looking after his little sister instead of drifting off whenever some beat entered his head. Which it was right now... not his fault they had a kitchen clock...

At that moment, somebody entered the room ("Erica!!!") and both Aeris and Alex rushed over to hug the girl. Aeris was being amazingly hysterical. This was understandable, given that she had had no idea of her daughter's safety. Erica was pretty much a sacred monument in the house. Alex knew how much she had wanted a boy, but after the hype with him suddenly she'd gotten pregnant again and then nine months later, _boom!_ he wasn't important anymore. But he just took it as normal. Guys didn't like being cushioned for every fall. A scarred man meant something more interesting to the ladies and he did still need a girlfriend. He, meanwhile, was just plain happy she'd woken up. It was even earlier than normal, too, which probably made Alexander all too joyful that she was even alive.

After a few moments, Erica backed up, pushing the two of them off. "Hang on!" she cried, finally ceasing Aeris's strange and twisted cries of relief. Alex was surprised. Erica had always enjoyed being the pampered cat of the family, so why stop now? "I'd like to know who you two are as well."

It was then that Alex noticed the problem. This girl wasn't Erica. She had short, black hair coupled with the classic Karsath bangs now curling in like Joumae's did. Her eyes were muddy like Erica's, but not so clear and instead they had more of a glazed quality to them. Her skin was much darker - Erica was fair, this one was tan. She was wearing a sleeveless blue jumper and some kind of black arm covering from her elbow to the base of her thumb. She also had a skirt on, a kind of moss colour with a lily stencil. Finally, she wore white tights and little black shoes. Although Alex knew the clothes from Erica's closet and washing, he'd never seen the skirt before. So... where had all this come from?

And Aeris just didn't understand. "E-excuse me, who... who are you?" If anything, her hysteria had just increased. She couldn't speak clearly without stuttering, so she was keeping her voice low. Unfortunately, the woman never shouted, so 'low' meant at a volume only she could really hear. Both Alex and the girl had to lean in to listen.

Alex crossed his arms. "Yeah," he agreed, "I'd like to know that t-" And in an explosion of darkness, Alex was taken over by Joumae again. "-oo?" Or... so it looked, anyway. For some weird reason he was still in full control. In fact, it was almost like the real Joumae was asleep. This time he had the full armour on including the helmet, but that didn't stop Mrs Karsath from striking him on the head. She still recognised the aura to be that of Joumae's. Funnily enough, it wasn't him.

"Ouch!" Alex rubbed his head again. "For freak's sake, can you stop hitting me like that, mom?" he groaned, leaving Aeris to be even more confused.

The girl who was _NOT_ Erica also asked. "This is not Joumae?" Which led to more confusion on Alex's part.

He knelt down and decided it was going to have to be direct. "Who are you?"

"I'm Erica. Wasn't that part obvious?" Hang on, he was lost here. This girl was called Erica too? "But you two... there was one called Joumae. He was the boy who rescued me. I overheard from that man with the wings." She bowed politely. That wasn't Alex's Erica. "I'm very sorry that I eavesdropped upon a conversation." And... wait, Erica Karsath apologising? That also was new.

"So... how come I'm like this? You probably know more than me here." By now Alex was pretty sure this child was more or less an authority on the subjects he now needed to be an expert on. If he was going to carry this family's future around, he needed to know what was up.

'Erica' walked around him, inspecting the armour. After a few moments of inspection coupled with Alex's obsessive whining about the fact he was 'in so much eye-stabbing green it kills me to think of how he (Joumae) actually stands it all', she delivered her hypothesis.

"I'd say that me being here has triggered a genetic reaction," she said. "It might be that every time you see this face, you'll immediately think your sister is in trouble and change into Joumae."

Alex flexed his now gloved hand. Without Sephiros there to shout it was hard to say that the explanation 'Erica' had just given for what was going on really was the explanation for what was going on. Before he could question, though, a flash of light signalled something strange. He looked up to see his sister standing there in her outfit from yesterday, giving a broad smile. As Alex and Aeris realised she was actually okay, a sudden blackout and return showed Alex as normal. As normal as he was going to get with that hair, though. He ran his fingers through the springy fringe, grumbling.

Now his little sister was a trigger. _Great_...


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimers: Newbie-Spud owns Alex, Joumae, Erica, other Erica and the Lockshield. Sque'enix owns Sephiros, Aeris, the Keyblade, the Heartless and the three important dudes in this chapter. Derest owns Jake Derestion (clearly). Venom owns Okan Venomati. Somnio Avis owns Grace Uong. Gregzilla owns Gregory Zivaku. Hakumei Shirufu owns 'some kind of animal fusion' (Haku Hayashi). Blankblank owns 'Ronald McDonald' (Telary Cri).**

* * *

Two weeks later at five o' clock, everybody sat to the dinner table. Aeris had made some form of casserole that even Sephiros was poking nervously. Aeris had been asleep for around ten hours - the night before must have been very tough on her. This was the reason that Alex had taken Erica off her hands; their mother was often exhausted.

Alex chased the random piece of mutated food around his plate. Not that it had actually gotten up on its feet - yet, anyway. He was actually just pushing it along, watching as its entrails of gravy, broccoli and something else slathered the crockery. It looked like it was bleeding and being gutted. Alex had seen foods that looked like they were bleeding before, including the mysteriously raw steak which actually had been bleeding, but none were exactly this disgusting. He excused himself from his dinner almost immediately, apologising several times as he poured the mess down the sink. And still, the contents were horribly questionable.

He sat back down, swallowing as Erica managed to down another plate of the stuff. Maybe it actually tasted good. You shouldn't judge things by appearance, he reminded himself, and asked Erica how it tasted.

She shrugged. "It's mom's cooking. Taste is independent of everything else - smell, sight, even that funny noise it makes when it slides off the plate." She demonstrated the strange whining. It sounded like an old lady very slowly dying of appendicitis. He stuck his tongue out, and so did she, before scooping it up and placing it in her mouth.

_You actually can eat that stuff?_ Joumae asked, looking up from his reflective universe in the spoon. Over the last fortnight, there had been a few Heartless attacks. It was no big deal, but it had given Alex a chance to get better acquainted with his new other self. It had turned out he hadn't intentionally been hitting on Aeris: she was now his mother, and had once been his daughter to be, and before that his granddaughter to be.

"Amazing, huh?" he muttered and once again everybody but Sephiros gave him the strangest look. Hey, he was talking to a freaking kitchen utensil. You'd stare too.

_That it's food, yeah_, Joumae shrugged. _I'm starting to wonder what basic properties food needs to have in this day and age._

"Joumae, tone it down," Sephiros ordered, making the clone of his grandson jump. "Me and my daughter have a small announcement to make." Alex looked up rather expectantly.

Aeris began. "We've decided on your new high school," she said cheerfully.

Alex dropped the spoon, ignoring the cry from Joumae. Hang on a second, he was already in high school! Since when had his mom decided that he should switch schools, and why had she done so without consulting him? He was a sophomore this year too! He'd had to run from the bullies last year who kept calling him a nerd and tripping him up in the corridors... Now he'd have to adjust to a whole new school along with finding the time to try and defend the world from the Heartless menace (cue dramatic music). Great, more stress to add to his never-ending pile of problems. It was reaching the height of Mount Everest now - oh, wait, it had surpassed it. Nobody was actually brave enough to climb up with a tape measure.

"Since when was I changing schools?" he demanded, a little rougher than he would have normally been with his mother. She gave him a condescending look. He shrunk back down in his seat, and Erica burst out laughing until a similar glare was sent her way and she joined her older brother in Flinching, USA.

"Well, it wouldn't make sense to have to go to your current school and ruin the perfect record you already have with a series of sudden unexplained absences," she replied. "The teachers would worry a lot about you, honey pie. So I had a brilliant idea!"

Sephiros took over. "Your new school, College du SacreCœur, has been informed of your new abilities," he said. "They are a specialist school comprised of students and teachers from other worlds, all of which have unique qualities about them. You'll be in a learning environment designed to allow you to come out of class whenever your duty calls to you." He nodded. "I once went there myself, and they will be proud to assist the new... defender." He was still hung up about the lack of 'Keyblade', whatever that was. But what Alex held, the mysterious shield, seemed just as good. It wiped out Heartless, and the creatures were drawn to it just like they would be to the Keyblade.

Alex, however, had other thoughts. "Rewind! Other worlds?" He laughed, crossing his arms.

Sephiros nodded. He was incredibly serious. The brunet knew from experience that whenever the man acted that way, it was because he actually did mean everything he said. He never lied with that face on.

He shook his head. "I'm going to a school for aliens. That's really meant to comfort me." He picked up the spoon again, and Joumae crossed his arms.

Aeris butted in. "They're not aliens, they're humans, silly!" she said.

Once again, the now fifteen-year-old was sceptical. "But you guys said, other worlds..." He propped his head up on his hand. It was going to be another long explanation, he could tell. "Other worlds, aliens. It makes sense. I mean, how can humans coincidentally exist on completely separate planets with different terrain? Are you sure they're humans?" And a horrible thought hit the already stressed boy. "Oh, god, am I an alien? Be honest with me."

As if timed to do so after five seconds, Erica, Aeris and Sephiros erupted into laughter. The pile of problems fell over from the vibrations.

KHKHKH

That Monday on September 3rd, Alex was stuffed into the College du SacreCœur uniform. He didn't like it. The shirts were linen and the blazer was made of some fabric that rubbed off whenever he touched it, got into his nose and made him sneeze. It wasn't allergies, it was just one of those fabrics which you didn't like as soon as you saw it, and you were perfectly right. Shockingly, while the blazer was warm grey, the tie and the lining on the shirts were green, just like the spirit's armour. Joumae had already expressed his humour once after spotting it in a shop. Alex didn't need it again.

So he just looked at the symbol on the blazer questioningly. It showed a cloud, a heart and something that looked like a sun with the moon pasted over on a split across the centre - all of which were on a blue field, half of it sky blue and the other half midnight. The midnight part had stars scattered on it. "Hey, mom?" he asked.

"Yes, dear?" She was shining his shoes. Why, oh why did they torment him so?

"What's the school logo mean?" He pointed at it. "It kinda looks like a sky, but I don't really get it."

"That one's easy," Aeris offered. "Sephiros said that the logo is the representation of the sky, the worlds, the balance of light and darkness and the holy heart." Hang on... SacreCœur was the title of the school; didn't that mean...? Sacre sounded like 'sacred', which meant 'holy'. He didn't know, he'd never paid attention in French classes last year.

"The school's based around the concepts of the world that Sephiros taught me..." he muttered, allowing Aeris to clap happily. "But, what's the holy heart?"

"It's harder to explain," she said, "but the holy heart isn't just the school's title. The holy heart is said to be the element that binds the worlds together, allowing them to have similar future prospects, species and politics, even in the most separated of worlds. It keeps them together in the road to peace and prosperity. It's the epiphany of all religions, hopes, dreams..." She sent him another smile. "In it's basic context, it's higher up than God Himself. There are even missing parts of the Bible going into circulation in the underground that say that the holy heart created Him." Alex nodded. The underground was a strange place. "And the holy heart unites everybody in the eternal bonds of love."

The concept of a higher power than God was strange to Alex, but he'd never believed in God anyway. He'd never believed in religion, either. It was completely illogical. "Okay... is the holy heart important to _me_?"

Aeris smiled again, and stood up, handing him his shoes. She then began righting his tie. _Like it's messed itself up in the last five minutes you were messing with my shoes_, said Joumae, looking out from the mirror.

"It's especially important to the Karsath family," she said. "The worlds really follow the holy heart. Without understanding it, it's like you don't understand anything. It powers the light and darkness in us all."

Alex crossed his newly clothed arms and looked in the mirror with a side-on glance. Somehow, he really thought he looked like a crockery doll. Just what was it with this woman's skill of making things look adorable? Was it just because she was pretty much a marble figure herself? "I look like I'm dead," he said simply.

KHKHKH

Aeris drove him to the school and dropped him off at the back gate. A whole horde of children of all ages, even a few smaller people who looked only six, were rushing into the school, all in the same uniform. Alex finally caught sight of the girls' outfits. They had skirts - and short skirts at that. He practically had to hold Joumae back by the mental sides while he walked hurriedly into the corridors, shrinking into his collar. There were so many people here. It made him uncomfortable. What on earth was he doing here, anyway? There was nothing incredibly special about him. But they'd just dumped him in a whole new school without any regards for his feelings.

The newest sudden thought he had was for any hope of survival.

A trio of people turned around the corner. They seemed a little less weird than the other people. Hey, he'd spotted some kind of animal fusion and the twin of Ronald McDonald here. These guys actually looked like they lived on Earth instead of some mystery planet off in the-holy-heart-knew-where. And they were all around his height, too. Maybe that amounted for something in this school. He walked up behind them, although lagged for a few yards. He didn't want them to think that he was deliberately stalking them for reasons other than lack of friendships at this building.

They seemed to be talking animatedly about something. Whatever it was, he needed to lean in to hear. And that was exactly what he did. There was a blond boy, a purple-haired boy and a dark-skinned girl with cropped hair. The blond was actually rather bright-sounding and wore a pair of glasses over blue eyes. Although purple hair was a bit strange for this country, the second still looked rather normal. It was swept back in an odd yet suiting haircut and held in that position with a camouflage-patterned bandanna. The girl seemed the most foreign of all. She had tilted eyes and over her uniform was an incredibly ornate set of black and gold jewellery. She looked to have power.

"But there has to be a really cool reason those things've reappeared," said the blond. He had a British accent. At least it was an accent from this planet; Alex didn't want to be sneaking up on alien beings from another world. "Maybe, maybe some idiot decided to open this thing - this door, to the darkness, right? And all of the creatures live behind that door! Yeah! Maybe that's-"

"-a pile of bullcrap," replied the purple-haired one. He also had the accent, but his voice was lower. He'd hit puberty first, Alex guessed, but he really didn't want to know too much about it. "There's no reason they're back because they never left. They're born from the darkness, of course. Darkness is in us all. Therefore, we have those things inside of us all the time. You have to learn to live with it." He rubbed his head. "Great, and the opening assembly, we're going to miss it! Where was it again, Grace?" He smirked. "You're Asian, so you're smart!"

The girl, Grace, pulled a face. Grace pulled a face. Heh, heh, heh. He made himself laugh sometimes. "That is a common misconception," she said, her voice clipped slightly. She had her arms crossed, but that wasn't really a big thing to watch out for when the threats underlying her voice were obvious. It was in her dark, angry tone: it virtually dripped venom with every syllable. And with her Chinese accent, there were more syllables, meaning much more venom. "Eastern people do not have larger brains than Western people. In fact, from what I have seen, Western people just have larger heads and nothing to fill the cavity with."

"Hey!" Alex cried, and they turned around. He jumped, and stepped back, bright red. "Sorry..."

The purple-haired boy frowned. Only now could Alex see that his eyes were the exact same colour as ice. "What were you doing following us around?" he asked, the little joy that had been in voice before extinguished completely.

"Well, uh..." Alex had no clue what to say. Obviously.

"Who are you, anyway?" the blond asked. Judging from his face he was a little loopy. He had a crooked smile and his eyes were slightly unfocused. Just what he needed right now; some moron telling him crazy stories about unicorns with AIDS and a man with a Polo mint for an eye. Cocaine in a can. "You look new!"

Alex scratched the back of his head. "Yeeeah," he stuttered, "I got moved into the sophomore year. They say I'm really special." He was joking about the special part. What he had meant to say was that people thought him crucial, not 'special'. 'Special' could mean anything. 'Crucial' meant he was part of a plan outside his control.

"What's so special about you, then?" Okan asked. "Come on, I wanna know!" He seemed way too happy for his own good.

Grace also seemed critical. "Yes. For example, I am from another world that was destroyed, Okan here-" she waved to the blond, "-was selected by a man called Orochimaru to continue some ninjutsu legacy or other and Derest-" the purple-haired, "-was chosen and possessed by the almighty Alucard. What is it with you?"

Alex scowled. How come they had to sound so - so normal!? Well, compared to him, being the student of Orochimaru from the television series _Naruto_ sounded much easier than having to fight back a whole Heartless invasion. Alucard, son of Dracula - at least something he knew! And... wait, world destroyed? Ouch... no offence. "Well, I could do this," he said, and held out his hand, concentrating. The mystery shield appeared out of the darkness. Okan tipped his glasses, Grace was surprised and Derest even opened his mouth without speaking. And by the looks of things, shock was not on his list of normal emotions. "If you like that, there's also a total bastard in my head who I'd bet would manage to flirt with, and get slapped by, every single girl in this school over eight, including all of the female teaching staff, before the day is out."

"I second that!" Okan cried randomly, drawing some very weird eyes. Grace hit him over the head.

Derest wasn't happy. "So... is there a reason why the crest of the mysterious black creatures is on that shield of yours?" he asked, pointing it out. Okan tuned back into real life along with his female accomplice.

"It's not on all of them," Alexander said, matter-of-factly. "Those Shadow things don't have it. Besides, I got this thing exactly how it is now. It's always been this dark." He then caught himself. Hang on, since when did he explain things to people? People normally explained things to him!

"It is _still_ the symbol!" Grace replied, and set herself in a fighting stance. Okan and Derest nodded to each other and nodded before standing that way as well - legs splayed out, croched over slightly with weapons in hand. Okan was armed with two fine-edged katana blades with silver hilts and Derest wore golden katar on his knuckles. Now that he could see, the purple-haired boy had fighting tape all over his fingers, binding them roughly together. Okan's weapons were covered in Japanese text and a small Sand icon just on the blade. Grace was weaponless, but she looked like she packed a punch quite naturally anyway. Her skin was very scratchy.

Alex sighed as the rest of the students in the hall backed away from the general fighting area, beginning to cheer. He juggled with the shield a bit. How come this had to happen? Sephiros and Aeris were going to kill him when he got sent home within twenty minutes of being at school. But then again, these guys had threatened him first and if he knew anything about manners, it was that you could never back down from a fight. It was only right that he play defensive for now. He threw the shield up with one hand, caught it and made his fighting stance as well. It wasn't too different from theirs, over than the way he scraped the shield along the ground, showing off the blade.

Derest dived over first, stabbing at Alex with his katar. Alex flinched, and jumped out of the way quickly. Derest growled, pivoted and landed on his hands, before launching off to flip over forwards and try a side-on strike. Alex was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, and brought up the blade edge to strike the katar with a quick parry. Derest grinned. Within a second, Alex was sent backwards and Derest landed neatly on his own two feet, people still cheering. He'd yelled "_Blastega!_" and caused an explosion that had sent the brunet back. Alex pushed himself up, shield held tighter.

"Damn you," he swore under his breath, before examining his opponents more. Derest and Okan were both pretty muscular for their age. Grace was curved with wide hips and- "Stop the inspection, pervert!" Alexander whispered wildly to the boy in his head, making the boy flail wildly.

_Sorry!_ the counterpart chanted, then returned to the matter at hand, which was the fight. _Alex, you need me for this battle! Come on!_

"I'm not bringing you out, Joumae," he muttered, barely loud enough for anyone, including him, to hear a single word. "I'm gonna clean house myself."

_Clean house? You? Don't make me laugh_, Joumae taunted. _How many Heartless could you get without me? Remember, without me, that nifty shield of yours - isn't!_

Alexander grumbled something, then stood normally. Okan was already gearing up for his attack, and Derest was willing to use his Blast magic again. Grace herself was going to be striking out after that blithering blond bozo - hey, some alliteration! And to think it wasn't normally welcome in battle situations, well, there it is!

KHKHKH

Two boys stood in the crowd. One looked to his friend. "Hey, you do realise that's a Heartless seal, right?" he said.

The other blinked. "Yeah," he said, nodding, then looking back at Alex as he fought. "But we're not going to attack or anything. He's an old friend."

"_Old_ friend?" He shook his head. "I don't picture you having any _old_ friends! With that baby face? No way!"

KHKHKH

"Jesus H. Christ," Alex swore, then readied himself. "Alright, Joumae. Let's try it properly. Armour and you at the same time, got it?" The spirit nodded fiercely, making Alex go tut-tut-tut. From everything he'd heard, he didn't think that Joumae could possibly be so childish when there were such a variety of adulterated references in his speech.

_I don't think you'll manage that by will!_ Joumae cried. _Cripes, blondy!_

Alex brought the shield up again to defend. "We've done it before!" Alex suddenly cried in the middle of the battle, throwing Okan off his guard. The boy faltered and began to trip over. Alex saw his chance, dived in and delivered a smashing blow to Okan's side using the blunt part of the shield. He didn't want to hurt him or anything; it was just a school scruff, nothing more, nothing less. It was no reason to start killing people over.

KHKHKH

"Wait... huh?" He crossed his arms. "Dude, did you hear that?"

He blinked again, as blank faces were his speciality. There was only reason that Alexander would end up acting so crazy as that, and it wasn't really pleasant. "For a second there, it sounded like..." But then again, it could mean their saving grace.

"Are you totally sure that's it?" the taller asked. "I mean, it could be absolutely anything. Really."

He placed a finger to his lips, thinking for a second. "Positive. It's the only thing that fits into that particular nook." He began to walk away. "Let's see what Greg thinks of this."

The other boy looked up. He was silent for a moment, thinking. Since when had his best friend been so quiet before? He wasn't normally. And normally he didn't really talk too much with Gregory. The boy was always very serious in his seat at the back of the classroom, fidgeting around with some strange puzzle toy. Gregory never really took many notes during class, but he was the smartest child of all of them. He could afford to not take notes, he could afford to miss a class and they could afford to ask him some questions about this new boy - Alex.

He then noticed that his friend had disappeared and ran down the hall, following.

KHKHKH

Joumae sighed, and switched with Alex, letting the light grow in its last attempt for survival, dissipate and the darkness take over its now meaningless struggle. The armour grew over body and uniform as Alex dropped back down into the darkness. Okan, Derest and Grace's eyes narrowed. This was something they didn't like, if they had seen it before. Joumae guessed that this Arucar-whatever person had possessed Derest and it had looked very much like this. But he'd always tried to make his entrance seem pretty original, really. His shield lay slack in his hand as he brushed some green hair out of his eyes.

"_Hi, I'm the total bastard in Alex's head who'd manage to flirt with, and get slapped by, every single girl in this school over eight, including all of the female teaching staff, before the day is out!_" he boasted very proudly. In his mind, Alex rolled his eyes, already sick of him.

"What the hell is this?" Grace muttered, and ran out for her turn. The school's system of turn-based fighting was only really effective if the parties were equal and if both parties were using the system. It appeared the boy following them hadn't been; he had just been attacking when every person came to him, and then only using parries to try. That meant he had felt he was more confident with a one-on-one battle than with a full party attacking him. That also said he wasn't too good - everybody at the school knew how to handle a three-on-one as part of their first year training. What was this guy, a newbie? He didn't look like he'd ever been to SacreCœur before. And she certainly didn't recognise him.

Joumae lowered the shield a little, if only to get a better look at her. Hey, she was pretty good-looking, if only a bit plain by his standards. He wouldn't mind taking her out on a date, or better yet, somewhere else.

A hand gripped his shoulder and he turned around to see a tall man in red. "Mr Karsath?"

* * *

Finishing note: The school's name, _College du Sacré-Cœur_, does indeed mean 'School of Holy Heart'. It does not mean 'College of Holy Heart'. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Akiyama: Umiyuri Papaeyra doesn't own Alex & Joumae (Newbie-Spud), Derest (Crimson Crescent), Okan (Venom), Grace (Somnio Avis), Gregory (Gregzilla), me & the Headmaster (Riku and Ansem, Square Enix) or the kiddo at the end of the chapter. However, she will own something in the story, and so will Hawkblade here.**

Hawkblade: Yay!

* * *

Joumae stared at the man. His face was covered in blood-red bandages, only a pair of amber eyes and a mouth, currently contorted into a frown, shining through. His clothing was a long, red robe with gold lining and some small brown pouches on his hip. His entire body was covered, the only sign of his humanity being the skin visible through the mask. Behind him, all the students who had stayed behind to watch gasped. The boy running down the hall slowed, sent a quick salute and shot off again after his shorter but less happy friend. The man nodded to him, then concentrated back on the battling parties. Derest, Okan and Grace backed up. The spirit turned back to send them a quite sharp smirk. "_You scared of an old man?_" he said, crossing his arms. 

Derest and Grace began shaking their heads, but the man cut them off. "Mr Karsath, it wouldn't do to begin a fight on your very first day at this school," he said, his deep and powerful voice echoing around the corridor. "Especially when you find yourself outnumbered."

"_Mr Karsath isn't here right now. Would you like to leave a message? 'Cause here comes the beep. Beeep!_" Joumae sassed, making Alex almost cry. Every student was shocked beyond the point of belief. The footsteps stopped again, this time abruptly. The man must have been very important at the school, or even in the refugee community in general, otherwise this wouldn't have shocked many kids. Either that or they were all usually very polite. In any case, he would be offended. It wasn't right to spit out smart-ass comments in front of anybody like that.

Basically, it was needless to say how the man then grabbed Joumae by the ear and began tugging him down the corridor, after the other boy. He was tall, with a lax uniform: his shirt was un-tucked on just one side, his tie shortened dramatically until his hair surpassed it in length and his blazer was only half on, unbuttoned and through over one shoulder. Random patches of blue gingham were stitched onto one leg of his trousers, along with 'SC'. His face was rather long with slightly perky cheekbones poking through the warmly tanned skin on his face. He had bright cyan eyes, tilted upwards at the outer edges like an Eastern face, and long silvery-white hair covering his head like a proud mane.

And right now, he seemed astounded at the spirit now taking over Alex's body. "How could he say that about you, headmaster?" he asked, now walking alongside them to the office. Joumae gulped. Headmaster... meant principal. This guy was the principal!? _Not_ good, _not_ good! Abort mission! "Never mind that right now, how come you managed to let him off?"

"I think the more interesting thing is why Sephiros, the good man that he is, forgot to mention Joumae's current state of mind," he said.

"_Hey, how do you know my name!?_" Joumae whined.

The boy stopped. "Sephiros?" he repeated. "What's that old legend of a guy got to do with this?"

"_Whaddaya mean, old legend!?_"

"Everything," the headmaster replied. "Sephiros just happens to be Mr Karsath's grandfather and the last man in the Karsath family of this world to wield the Keyblade, Mr Akiyama. Afterwards, the Knights of Trinity: Aqua, Ven and Terra... they were chosen for their hearts instead of their bloodline. I do believe Terra was your father, correct?"

Akiyama nodded. "Yeah," he muttered. "But I'm not worried. I'm not deserving of a Keyblade anyway. I don't believe that I would have a strong enough heart to support one."

"_What's a strong heart gotta do with DNA, anyway!? It's in the blood! In the _blood"

"Joumae, be quiet!" The headmaster snapped, and the verdant did, for once in his life. It wasn't right for him to annoy this man, especially after discovering that he knew so much about the history of the Keyblade. He'd wielded one himself before and the shield was a welcome change, being a great new challenge for him to master. But he still had to respect his roots. The Keyblade was crucial to the story of the holy heart. Once again, Alex frowned, unhappy at not being in the know when everybody else seemed to be. And once again, Joumae chided him. It wasn't a pleasant experience and it gave him the world's largest headache.

And he hadn't had breakfast that morning either. His stomach was beginning to rumble up a storm. When was lunch?

Akiyama looked at him. "Who is this guy anyway? Did you say his name was Joumae Karsath?" he asked. Joumae literally snarled.

"No, he is not," the headmaster said, stopping next to a door. He placed his hand on a touch pad in the wall, and the door opened up to a circular room full of books. A huge gold frame hung upon the wall, but the image had been destroyed, ripped out by somebody. Files were scattered across the desk in the middle, a brown school folder open in the middle. Joumae recognised it as being Alex's. A glass case stood on one side, a blue chest on the other. The frosted glass held something glowing bright pink, and Joumae could only ever associate one thing with that particular shade and hue. A reaped heart, open to invasion by the darkness, was in the headmaster's office.

As soon as they entered, Akiyama closed the door and locked it, hitting another button to keep it sealed. A black gauged filled blue in the top of the frame, marked 'Cluster'. The headmaster sat in the tall red chair. Joumae gingerly took his seat in the smaller yellow chair in front of him. Their witness stood by the door, hand hovering lightly over a bat wing-shaped sword with an eye in the hilt.

The silver-hair was first to speak. "Look, sir, what's going on?" he said. "You haven't told me anything."

"_And we know even less_," Joumae yelled, "_and we're stuck in the middle of it!_"

The headmaster opened his mouth, but no sound escaped. He was silent for a few moments. Then, finally, he began to breathe a little calmer. "You don't even know what you're doing here, Joumae?" he inquired. The 'knight' shook his head in shame. "Well, I ask that you release Alex this instant."

"_That's a command, right?_" Joumae whispered, acting the smallest he had ever done in his life. When the man confirmed, he went limp in the chair. The armour faded off with a quick green glow. Then his heart stopped. Finally, he breathed again, his hair and eyes returning to their usual brown colour. Alex Karsath pushed himself up in his seat, head bowed in respect for the man.

"I'm really sorry, sir," he apologised. Then his face took on a harder look. "They started it. Just because of the Heartless symbol on my shield, they think I'm evil. That's just bias!"

"Heartless symbol?" the headmaster said suddenly, and for the first time he looked at the shield Alex held. "Amazing..."

"What's so amazing?" Akiyama asked. "It's just a Heartless symbol. Those things aren't really to be worried about until they're fifty foot tall, shooting fireballs and killing all humans in sight. If it were up to me," he said, hands on hips, "then the Heartless would be treated as part of society."

"The Heartless may be a part of the ecosystem but they _don't_ belong in society," the headmaster replied. "Those monsters going about, ripping out hearts without a care in the world for their victim. Parasites of the darkness, simply feeding off others in return for that quick burst of memories. Memories of who they used to be." He leaned forward over the desk to look at Alexander more clearly. "Heartless do not belong in this school."

"Well, if that includes me then I'm _proud_ to leave," Alex said, getting up from the chair and approaching the door angrily. He'd forgotten how it felt to be assertive. Next to Joumae, he was very submissive but, without him, he could shine to his highest standards. "It won't do good for me to have learned nothing from the apparent local authority on Heartless, other worlds and the holy heart that my mom mentioned this morning. I'd have a better teacher if I was taught by my _little sister_! At least part of her knows what she's talking about." He eyed the gauge. It looked like a video game gauge. So did he hit the door and deplete the gauge to get it down to zero and get out of there? That was how it always worked on his PlayStation Two.

Akiyama stuck his arm out. "Do you really have to go through me?" he muttered, raising the sword in his hand.

"Is that a challenge?" Alex retorted. You could smell the testosterone. Both of them prepared their weapons. The headmaster sighed. Boys these days... they were more into fighting than they were into studying. It really was a good thing that the school curriculum covered both. Akiyama himself was one of the top students in his fencing classes, enough to allow him his own sword, the Soul Eater.

He stood up and placed himself between the two boys. "Calm down, you two," he said. His words boomed, and Alex and Akiyama both needed to cover their ears in slight pain. The air still ringed inside, even when trying to blank out the other noise. "We have no time for fighting. Especially when nobody seems to have explained your role in the worlds, Mr Karsath. Now, if you seat yourself-" he gestured to the chair, "-I just might begin telling you how things came about."

Alex crossed his arms. "I already talked it over with Grandpa," he said. "All I need to know is that the Heartless are the bad guys, that the shield can attract and kill them and that I have to tear them up otherwise my sister's fate's gonna turn out even _worse_ than it seems right now! I didn't have to know that I _failed_ destiny and lost the _Keyblade_!" Thanks to this little shouting rant, and his voice reaching its fortissimo, all of his holed-up anger was now released. The strange shield appeared in his hand. "And I certainly don't have to have any friends here, because if I _lose_ them, then it's gonna-" His breath hitched, he stopped and saw the gold eyes look from him to the shield and back.

"Remarkable..." he whispered. "The boy received the opposite of the Keyblade..."

"_What_!?" Akiyama exclaimed. "There's another weapon like the Keyblade?"

"If you both know something, say it!" Alex cried, and the man leaned back, making a bridge with his fingers.

"The Lockshield, I can only surmise it to be that, Mr Karsath," he said coolly, and Alex raised an eyebrow. He hesitantly sat back in the chair. "It is the weapon of the darkness whereas the Keyblade is the weapon of light."

The opposite of the Keyblade and the weapon of darkness? But he was supposed to be the Keybearer. How could that happen to him? He was Alexander Ephiram Karsath, grandson of Sephiros the Swordsmaster of Darkness (which, of course, was a misnomer, being as Sephiros only accepted the light in his house), continuation of the Karsath family. How could he end up with a weapon of darkness that was the complete opposite of what had been intended to be given to him? This was stupid. Alex was meant to be a saviour and he had the darkness instead. What could destroy the worlds was what was given him instead of what would save them. What an absolute joke!

"You indeed hold great power, Mr Karsath," said the headmaster, trying to give some support to his otherwise crumbling new student. "But the problem is that it might only come out in situations of great tension, or when you feel defensive. Especially in events like earlier this morning. You did have an ego to protect, after all." He let out a short laugh. Alex pouted. "And just now, you showed yourself to be in a very stressful situation overall, and you felt you needed to protect your own beliefs."

"Yeah," Alex said, agreeing. As all his anger began to melt, the shield vanished in a burst of smoke. He coughed a little. "Stress is... a negative feeling, right?"

Akiyama looked blank. "Are you saying your trigger to summoning that Lockshield is total negativity?" he asked.

"If that's true, then I could call the shield all the time!" Alex joked, for once laughing. Akiyama smirked, shaking his head. No wonder this kid caught his friend's attention. They were almost the same person. In a way, it was creepy, but in another-

-he'd sure get used to having him around.

KHKHKH

Alex walked out of the office about three minutes later, carrying his bag over his shoulder. He was smiling. The man in bandages watched him go. "Interesting," he muttered. "That boy could be useful to us after all, Mr Akiyama."

Akiyama brushed some of his grey hair out of his tanned face. His cyan eyes held a bright gleam that they hadn't for a few years now. "Do you really have any idea about this kid or this Lockshield thing?"

The headmaster smirked. "Nearly all of it was guesswork, young man," he replied. "Although lies tend to hold a hint of truth. That, my friend, is the wisdom of the teacher." He tapped his nose, causing Akiyama to grin, then paused. "Come to think of it, why would he say his younger sister was going to be a better teacher than me? He himself is only fifteen, and I heard from Sephiros that his only granddaughter is a close-to-fourteen-year-old girl."

"He said _'part'_ of her knows what she's talking about," the teenager recalled. "Why only part?" His eyes narrowed. "Unless..." He thought back to a few years back and snapped his fingers in success. He turned to his teacher. "Headmaster, can I ask you something? It might change the whole future of how we see the Heartless."

KHKHKH

Gregory looked up from his trinket. "Hello, kiddo," he said jokingly.

He slammed a hand on the desk. "He's here," he said. "The new kid's here."

"The new kid?" he replied blankly. "What's so bad about some newbie running about our school? We got a whole year of them." He twiddled the toy in his hand around. It was a special type of puzzle with floating pieces. You had to try and move them to the right position, then it would start over with a higher difficulty. It wasn't as easy as it sounded; the movable pieces were very similar with a disorienting glow. "We call them _preschoolers_."

"No. We meant a different kind of new kid," he said resignedly. "He's an old friend of ours, from our old neighbourhood. And for some reason he's now in this school."

Gregory smiled. "I think I know who you're talking about," he said. "You're talking about the boy who's here to save the world, right?"

"That was the promise _we_ made."

"Well, the holy heart entrusted its faith in somebody else this time," Gregory retorted. "I'm afraid you're not the one who's intended to save us all. That was decided long before we were even born."

Within a few seconds, the desk was overturned and Gregory was by the wall. "You don't get it, do you? We never even wanted the burden. We only made our promises because there was no alternative to what we had. We chained ourselves to our problems and walked out to the tide. And then a splash of foam and he comes along, with his own millstones strapped to his leg, stuck in exactly the same position as us." His hand slacked. "We never wanted anybody to share the pain. He never deserved this whole mess, he was too nice of a kid."

Gregory grunted, rubbing the side of his face. The other had pretty much obliterated part of his face and his glasses were crumpled. "My brother's going to hate you." He pushed himself up onto his feet, stumbling.

A smirk crossed his face. "Oh, really? We thought the enemy of his enemy could be his friend. That's logic, right?"

"You clearly haven't known my brother like I have," Gregory muttered. "He hates people with more power than him, as well as me. And since you were entrusted with that much power-"

"Hmph. Good thing our friends aren't here then." He began to leave. "But why Alex, anyway?"

"The biological clock was ticking in his family's genes," he answered lightly, righting the desk and chair. The puzzle lay on the floor, snapped into two pieces, with the mysterious floating parts dull and motionless on the old tiles. "It was only a matter of time until another Karsath decided to swallow his destiny. How he did it, the outcome: things like that, I'm not allowed to know. But I can tell - he's gonna be the finisher to all of this. One day, Aselia will have me back and your world will have you and your lovely little pals." He sat in the chair. The floor and wall were fine as opposed to their state just a few seconds ago, smashed up as best as the other, younger boy could manage.

"Oh, you flatter us so!" A grin replaced his scowl. It was almost as if the previous exchange had never happen.

Greg crossed his arms. "Just don't let that Tanaka girl catch you talking to me like this. She might add two and two together and get five." A groan and hurried hopping. "So you do fancy her, huh?"

"Shut up!"

KHKHKH

Alex knocked on the door of the classroom, it being his room according to the headmaster. The other opened it. They blinked for a moment.

"Oh, my god... _Sora_?"


	7. Chapter 7

HB: Shizen! Here we go!

* * *

"You're... alive?"

The other boy stayed silent. He was shorter than Alex by a few inches, with a much lighter build. He had ridiculously spiky caramel hair framing his dirty tan face and sky blue eyes. Instead of a regular school blazer, he wore a thick denim jacket. His tie was also a checker pattern like the patch on Akiyama's trouser leg. He looked like he had been in a lot of fights since they'd last seen each other: his face was bruised slightly; he was leaning on the doorframe while standing on one foot, holding the other in his hand and rubbing it exuberantly; he wasn't even wearing any school shoes, just a sock on the one foot and an old worn trainer on the other.

Alex waited for a moment. It had been such a long time since he had seen Sora. He'd hardly known that the boy was still alive. After all, since the terrible incident eight years ago he had been so sure that the boy had passed on. It had been his first loss, the second being his father leaving the house and not reappearing again since the day.

He'd learned to deal with it. At first he'd been distraught. His best friend killed and taken away from him while he was still under ten years old. There hadn't been a funeral as there hadn't been a body and he'd had no family who was alive or cared about him, so Alex had simply gone down to the churchyard, all by himself, with a ring of flowers. He'd seen other people lay flowers on graves. Upset, he'd even dug a small cross made out of popsicle sticks into the ground, decorating it with a gold gel pen. Writing the name 'Sora' in squiggly letters. He'd planted it under an old oak tree. As far as he knew, it had never been moved. It obviously had seemed a very compassionate thing to do and the church staff had done nothing.

He changed along the river bend. The visits became fewer and fewer, the flowers beginning to wilt. Then his father left them all and didn't return for several weeks. Those weeks quickly turned into months. Months evolved into years. Aeris worried for his sanity, but Sephiros insisted that the boy grow out of his sorry stage. Aeris eventually agreed, and bought him some things to try and take his mind off it all. Erica was too young to understand how it felt to lose somebody. She'd always thought Alex to be just lucky. She'd forgotten how everybody loved her more. People only cared for Alex because they pitied him.

Somehow, through it, he'd become better. He kept an eye out for his sister, always hoping that it would never happen again. He hoped that someone else wouldn't die.

And now it was revealed to him that he'd never actually died. He felt cheated out of eight years of his life. He'd been so protective of his family. He'd had to endure countless insults from his grandfather about his life. He'd had a spirit and a mythological weapon dumped on his head. His sister had lost her heart in an attack; she had been extremely lucky to have it returned to here. And now this. It was like life just wanted to wave the finger in his face.

At long last Sora spoke and Alex knew it was him. "Life wasn't kind to me. To _us_," he said. "At least we scraped through it." He would have continued if he hadn't suddenly been swept into a huge hug on Alex's part. But what else was going to happen? He hadn't seen him in eight years, and they'd been childhood friends. No logic in the world could stop him now.

KHKHKH

Alex checked the room plan on the board and sat down in his allocated seat. For some reason he had been placed in the front row. Gregory sat at the back and he immediately recognised him to be the one who had warned him, but he didn't speak to him. Sora, meanwhile, sat at the desk next to him, by the window. He was close enough to talk to and that was very much what he wanted. After all, the boy had a lot of explaining to do... Speaking of which, another entered the classroom. It was Akiyama, the student from the office. And he didn't look too happy at the moment.

"Hey, Riku," Sora said, his head bowed. The boy now confirmed to be called Riku Akiyama raised an eyebrow, before looking at Alex.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked. He'd never known Sora to be like this.

Alex shrugged. "He wouldn't tell me about it," he said. "He just told me that life wasn't kind to 'them', whatever _'them'_ means. I guess it would be, pretending you were dead." Akiyama's eyes widened. He looked at his best friend in disbelief and the caramel-haired boy shrank down into the wood, arms covering his face so that he simply looked like a spiky ball of hair. Something told Alex that Sora hadn't exactly let onto that plot point while being friends with Akiyama.

But he didn't get quite the answer he expected. "I would have thought you to feign consistently ill, not dead," he said.

"It's not our fault, Riku," he shrugged. "It really has been pretty hard for us. But we still cried at the cross."

Akiyama looked back at Alex. "Cross? Wait, you planted a cross for my best friend? _My best living friend_!?"

"I thought he was freakin' _dead_!" Alex retorted. "It wasn't like I was pranking somebody!"

At that moment, the school bell rang. It had been quite a while and he'd been awaiting it, to be entirely truthful. He watched curiously as a whole horde of students of all shapes and sizes walked into the classroom. He blinked at a few of them. It seemed he'd be in class with a girl with a huge scythe topped with a moon, some strange black-haired guy wearing a Cadbury's purple neckerchief, a brown-haired and blurry-eyed boy wearing a hoodie over his uniform, a blue... koala - was it a koala? He couldn't tell - holding plasma blasters in two of its four arms and a couple of other weird people. A small black-haired girl decked out in grey hot-pants and tank top (an altered uniform; Alex wanted one of them) talked animatedly with three tiny sprites, comprised of a blonde, a brunette and a grey-haired girl, at the back.

"So, I heard about this new boy - oh, there he is, next to Sora!" the girl cried, and they all looked back to see him. "He's just as hot as Hari said he was!" The blonde girl looked pretty cute... no, thoughts away, thoughts _away_...

Too late had he thought that, because the blonde flew up in his face. "Hi, my name's Rikku! What's yours?" she asked eagerly.

He blushed bright red. Tiny pretty girl floating in front of his face. Must resist. Must resist. Joumae, down! Stop drooling! "Er... Alex..." Right now, he couldn't speak in full sentences. It would be impossible anyway. He was talking to a girl, for crying out loud!

"You're _so_ hot, you know that?"

Alex turned bright red and resisted the urge to slam his head into the desk. Man, this girl was peppy.

The grey-headed one blinked, and shook her head in disbelief. She floated over using her tiny black devil wings. The school uniform didn't suit her very well. She was more of the kind of person to wear black and red, plenty of leather and belts. "Rikku, haven't I told you before not to fawn over new kids like that? It's embarrassing." She had a rather low but commanding voice. The blonde winced, and began to back away.

"Oh, _sorry_, Paine!" she said, before skipping off on the air back to her seat. She swooped down onto the tiny high-chair at the back next to Gregory, before waving at him and blowing him a kiss. Alex just looked dumbfounded at the front, completely freaked out. Somehow he now had the feeling that he had a girlfriend, and a loud one at that. The feeling was stronger than it was when he was walking alongside his sister. Maybe it was just a girl thing, or by being used to his sister. He didn't know. All he could tell was that the grey-haired girl was in charge and that the blonde was too hyper for words to describe.

What was it with the hyperactive blond/e stereotype recently?

And with a bang, Okan opened the door wildly. Grace walked in behind him and Derest brought up the rear.

Okan was louder than the rest of the class now. The fact that Alex could understand what he was saying was enough to make him begin to jump. "I swear, maybe the kid has something to do with the critters! There has to be something that links Karsath and his mystery head dude to the Heartless, and I'm not just talking the strange shield-thingy!" he was saying.

"Look, I'm ten times smarter than you and one year younger!" Derest replied. "Can't you just listen to me for once? You must have a problem with him or something, Okan, because I've never heard you go on about this for that long! The symbol could be in common use here! Remember the swastika?"

Grace grabbed both of them by the ears and dragged them down. "Silence, you two! We are not from this world, so we do not know about the symbol, for Pete's sake."

"And don't get me _started_ on Pete. Fat or what?" Okan grinned. "Besides, aren't you the one who originally said to fight Karsath because of the symbol?"

Grace sighed and saw Alex sitting next to Sora. She frowned, crossing her arms. "Hey, he's sitting next to Sora," she muttered. "I wonder why?"

"And I'll wonder why you're still standing later," said the man who came in. He had long blue hair tied back in a shimmering ponytail and startlingly blue eyes. He wore black trousers, a dark cotton shirt with a high neckline and a long silvery winter coat. If Alex looked at the back, he would catch a sight of the burning card on the back of the coat, stitched onto it. "Ms Uong, Mr Venomati, Mr Derestion, please sit down in your seats."

They grumbled and reached their seats, which were all in a row behind Sora. Derest sat behind Sora, who shrunk down further for an unknown reason. Alex put it down to a magnifying glass sticking out of the boy's pocket, which he hadn't noticed before.

"Okay, my name is Mr Damashii," he said, and a few people in the room sniggered, including Alex. The poor teacher sighed. "What's wrong?"

A girl with gingery-brown hair put her hand up. She bore a bright yellow overdress. "I'm Selphie Tilmitt," she introduced herself. "Isn't _Katamari Damashii_ that weird video game where you make these rolls of junk and throw them all over the place?"

Mr Damashii laughed for a bit himself. "Unfortunately I don't so much play video games as live them, Ms Tilmitt. Although that does sound like fun," he said. Then he clapped. "Right, I'm going to be your full-time teacher for this year. That may seem a bit odd for a high school. I know, I know. Most high schools on this world have a home room for each class and then a timetable for each student, and you'd have to walk all the way around the building for your lessons. It's really a good thing I'm taught in multiple subjects and most highly skilled in the ability to identify the different Heartless breeds by their official names, something you'll all be enjoying.

"Oh, and detention? Forget about it!" he smiled. "It'll be about as common as homework, and I'm quite famous around this school for not handing out a lot of that." At this point, everybody sighed. Mr Damashii sighed. "However..." At this point, everybody groaned. "I still expect some form of memorisation for examinations. Starting with after today, because right now, I'll be giving you a list of the most common Heartless breeds we know of today." He walked around the desk and pulled out a remote, pressing one button. At once the lights dulled and a projector buzzed down from the ceiling. He struck another button and it lit up, shining a beam of light down onto the desk.

Data swirled around in circles brightly to form an image of a Shadow Heartless. It was a hologram, but a shrunken image. Alex's eyes widened, but Sora and the rest of the class looked on normally. "Right, so this one is a Shadow-" He got one _right_! Lucky him. Mr Damashii flicked to another: the one with the helmet. "-and this is a Soldier." _Two_ in a row! Not bad. "These two are the most common you'll ever see. Trust me, I'm sick of them already, and these are just the holograms!"

He flicked to another. It was giant and round, with a large girth. It also wore a helmet, but this looked like the bathroom plug. "He's a Large Body, scaled down to 1:4," he said normally, then coughed, hiding the words 'Lard Boy' behind them. The black-haired girl with the hot pants giggled. The next one... was a tiny flying yellow creature with a propeller on his rear like a tail. It looked rather much like a flying piranha. "And this one is a Rapid Thruster. Named for its speed." The hologram flew off over their heads quickly, only to be pulled back and erased to make room for another lot.

It was the old flying group, the multicoloured Mages. "These guys have hard names to remember," he said. "All have got to do with music. Let's see..." A few hands were raised. Mr Damashii raised an eyebrow and checked the board. "Right, uh... Mr Akiyama, can you tell us their names?"

"Red Nocturne, Blue Rhapsody, Yellow Opera, Green Requiem," Akiyama said, the words rolling easily off his tongue. Alex blinked. Wait, so their names were a combination of the colour they wore and a synonym for 'melody'? Of course, he knew there was the little differences, but they still all meant 'tune' to him.

"Very good, Mr Akiyama," Mr Damashii congratulated him, and the silver-hair smirked to himself. By the looks of things, he was already well-learned in all of this. He guessed that being acquainted with their headmaster was probably extremely beneficial to his education. Hell, he knew that 'SC' meant something important, other than SacreCœur itself! "I find their names the most interesting of all the Heartless, to be honest. For example..." He reached up and pulled the holographic Green Requiem down by its foot, "a requiem mass is a ceremony of one of the religions of this world to honour the dead at their last passing. But a Green Requiem's skill is the spell 'Cure'. And you wouldn't think from looking at a Red Nocturne that a musical nocturne is dreamy music."

Alex laughed. Mr Damashii looked at him, eyes narrowed. "What do you find so funny, Mr... Karsath?" he said off-beat, reading the name. He blinked, reading it again a few more times to be sure, then looked up at him.

"I _definitely_ know why a Yellow Opera got its name!" he said, already rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. But Mr Damashii didn't seem really threatening. He also had said he didn't give out detentions really often. Alex really didn't think this would have any serious repercussions.

"Oh?" Mr Damashii walked over to his table. Alex glanced over at Sora. The boy's lip twitched into a lopsided beam. The teacher was quick to catch his attention, though. "And how do you suggest it got its name? I'm looking forward to this one!"

"Well, everybody who remembers their element of lightning should know their victims make a _real_ scream, just like every opera I've ever heard in my life!" he joked.

Mr Damashii blinked for a few seconds, absorbing the humour. Then, he threw his head back in laughter without warning. Alex shrunk back in the chair slightly. "That's a good one! Really, Mr Karsath," and at this point he winked to the student, "I'm going to be looking forward to teaching you."

KHKHKH

After a quick lunch, Mr Damashii had them write down the Heartless' names, along with little diagrams to show what they looked like. Next, he was ready to show some rarer Heartless, and got each one of them to draw it to the best of their ability. Not that they needed it. Some of these ones were so big that it really didn't matter, just as long as they got down the name.

He turned on the projector again. This time the beam was larger. As if following cue, a curly-haired boy, the wolf girl, the blurry-eyed boy, the scythe girl, the neckerchief boy and the koala moved their tables slightly out of the way as the light travelled down to directly underneath the projector's main casing. Akiyama, the red-haired boy next to him and a greenish-black-haired boy behind span around in their seats and Gregory even put away his puzzle. These simple acts made Alex nervous. If he hadn't been before, he was now. It looked like a big arena for a hologram...

He pressed the button and the middle of the room filled up with a giant purple creature with curling horns. Its yellow eyes peaked out, looking more vicious than on the other species.

"And if you think that this is so big now, kids, the projection is currently scaled 1:11," Mr Damashii described, the students shuddering. 'Selphie' let out a small gasp. "This is what we call a Behemoth. On our books so far, it's the second largest repeated Heartless in the worlds. All other larger Heartless breeds exist only as one-of-a-kind. The third being a Living Bone." He switched the channel to show a skeleton rhinoceros-like animal with a saddle and bulging eyes. "Now, this one usually will have other Heartless riding in the saddle. If not, then get close to it; you might be able to grab onto the top and ride around on it for a little while. Some young felines have been known to piggyback them and slam them into the floor on their heads, breaking the skull into the ribs."

An example played showing a brown lion cub hopping onto the back, gripping on with its claws, then pulling back on the neck of the Living Bone, causing it to jump, somersault part way and fall onto the floor on its nose. A _horrible_ smashing noise accompanied the disappearance of the head and the lion's successful ramming into a rock face, killing it. A heart fluttered out.

"And the biggest multiplied Heartless? It's called a Kurt Zisa," the blue-haired man said, pressing the left arrow button on the remote. A huge ivory and bronze humanoid Heartless appeared. It had four arms, all of them holding giant gleaming scimitars. Two of the hands glowed with a bright burst of white energies converging into an orb. "This thing is huge. Aim for the hands first before you try the head or the torso. I don't know how may times I've had to say that before to kids."

He looked edgy when saying this. Was there something underlying his words?

"And _please_, whatever you do," and he looked so serious as he said this, "don't leave without anything to protect you."

* * *

HB: And there's the next chappie from Umiyuri. Wow. She's much quicker than me!


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Umiyuri, the one who wrote this story, doesn't own anyone, as far as I can remember. Alex, Erica, the Lockshield and Joumae are owned by Newbie Spud, all Kingdom Hearts and Final Fantasy characters are owned by Square Enix. Hari Lines is owned by Disenchanted and I own the sprite at the end (though he isn't normally a sprite). As for the red eyed guy, don't know who he is, but he is owned by someone.

* * *

Alex wandered home uneasily. The day had been pretty easy compared to his first day at Portland High. That time last year, he'd been shoved around the halls and began a fight, just like today. However, unlike today he had lacked a weapon to defend himself with, the principal had not so much as batted an eyelash when encountering his beating and when he had entered the classroom for the first time he'd been so ostracised by everybody that he'd eventually sat at the back pathetically. Not only that, he'd also been given tons upon tons of homework on subjects that hadn't even been taught yet. It wasn't like he couldn't do it, but the pile had taken a week that he could have spent playing _.hack//infection_.

However, today had gone much more smoothly. The fight had been with a weapon and much less one-sided that before. The headmaster (he'd gotten used to calling the man that in his head, instead of 'principal') had actually interfered. He'd been able to talk to people. There was even a whole group of girls who found him attractive. And the homework didn't even exist; it was just a list of Heartless with his bad but identifiable drawings to tell him just what breeds they were.

And not only that, Sora was now living... everything was going surprisingly great. And he'd thought his life was ruined.  
That was exactly why he was worrying. There was either something wrong at his run-of-the-mill school or everything was wrong now, at his new mesh-up school with the oh, so fancy name of 'College du SacreCœur'.

He passed by the windows of a closed department store, then backtracked. His reflection was Joumae again. The other was wearing school uniform rather than armour, but it was tinted green like the hair and the shockingly bright eyes. He was smiling a little.

_So, how was school, knucklenut?_

Alex was really getting sick of the nicknames by now. Though, the fact that he was so creative with them, even after two weeks, amazed him to no end. "You saw. You are me, after all," he answered.

_How many times have I told you this...?_ The spirit rubbed his temples soothingly. _We're not the same person. I'm simply passed down the family line. I don't have that much of a link with you anyway. Not like I'm gonna..._ He looked around. _Though, it's kinda nice, seeing the changes after forty years._

Alex put his hands in his blazer pockets. "Really? Forty whole years?" he asked, gob-smacked. He knew what he was talking about. Technology had taken such a warp in such a short time. Before there had been radios. Now there were MP4 players.

_Yep, forty. S'great to be a kid again. I'd been with Sephiros until he was twenty_, Joumae said, stretching. _I'd almost forgotten the mood swings. What are you, a pregnant lady?_

"Shut up!" Alex yelled at the reflection suddenly, making others in the street stare at him.

_Well, they _are_ your hormones, my friend_, the verdant teased. _You get them from me. I was like this once, ages back. Yeah... now I just have to watch it all._

Alex's hair drooped. If he had been paying attention to his hair and not to Joumae at the time, he would have noticed how his hair looked more normal than usual. "Whoa... doesn't sound very pleasant being you, huh?" he muttered. "I guess it's kinda lonely at times, huh?

_Until a human comes along, very so!_ Joumae yawned, stretching his arms. _Though, to be honest, it feels much better being with you, sprat. I get to come out a lot more, to breathe, to live... I haven't had this much fun in eight centuries!_

"E-whaaa!?" The brunet nearly fainted. Joumae had been around for more than eight-hundred years... now he felt even more insignificant that usual. And normally he felt like a minnow in a shark den. And not just any sharks, either. Bull great white sharks with steel dentures and sights with crosshairs. Now the sharks had machine guns that shot tiny versions of Kurt Zisas at him. Wait a second... where exactly was this train headed, again? He hated random, didn't he? "But... um... how..." Oh, brilliant. Now he couldn't come up with full sentences. Right, breathe in, breathe out. In, out. In, out. Just one step further to becoming completely calm again, boy, and no denying it.

Finally, he snapped back into talking. "Where did you come from, anyway?" he said, then blinked. Joumae had disappeared from the mirror-like glass. Narrowing his brow, he walked off.

KHKHKH

The next few days at school were a snap, which shocked the young Karsath almost as much as it did when Akiyama had revealed himself to be their head student counsellor. No wonder he was associated with the headmaster so much. Practically all Alex could hear walking through the halls as he tried to get to lunch and back without a fight was "Help! I'm turning into a grown-up! Can you reverse it please?", "Get these midgets offa me! Why do they think I'm their dad!?" and "Akiyama! I need help! My girlfriend dumped me!" Sometimes he even heard the ex-girlfriend complaining too: 'Yo, Akiyama! Pretend to be my boyfriend! My old one's still really grabby! Doesn't he get it yet?"

He thought the answer was obvious. The guy was Supernanny for the vertically and mentally challenged.

It turned out Sora had been busy while he was away, too, and very far away indeed, after quickly showing him something he'd made a couple of years ago.

"It's called a Keychain," he said, holding it up. It was a bunch of thalassa sea-shells sewn together in the shape of a star. There was a small drawing of a face on one of the points. It was connected to a special metal chain "It's said that when you attach one to a Keyblade, the design of the blade changes to something completely unique. If you haven't got a Keyblade, though, it can still act as a lucky charm. We made this when we were living on another world." He'd become used to the way that Sora used the 'royal we' in his speech. To be honest, he just thought the kid was hiding something.

"You changed worlds!?" Alex cried, then composed himself. "Why?"

"We had to." His eyes were downcast. Underneath his tie, Alex could see a glint of silver. Now, come to think of it, as he looked he noticed how the caramel-haired boy's collarbone looked out of proportion... "Those black creatures - the Heartless - they kept coming after me on this world." Alex looked up. The Heartless had been pursuing Sora? Why? "Mom and us packed our bags and had to move. We got the first Gummi Ship out of town. We moved to Destiny Islands, and when we got there, we made this. We wanted to ward the Heartless off so we could finally live in peace on the islands. We thought luck could save us.

"Then, they came again. They took our world, and they took mom. We had to flee; everybody went to this school so we joined it."

"I'm... I'm sorry."

The group of girls in his class, being Yuffie, Selphie, Yuna, Rikku and Paine, seemed to have a very strange source. By the end of the third day, Alex had tracked down the line of gossip to a sixteen-year-old blond boy called Hari Lines. As soon as he had bumped into him, the poor kid - who was shorter than him by some miracle and extremely feminine in everything he had, including the fact that his weapon was a paper star taped on a plastic wand - blushed deeply and ran off like a little girl back into his all-female clique, who all cheered for him. It went without saying that Alex now really disliked Hari and everybody who dared to called that stick of his by a name other than 'Gayblade'.

The homework was fleeting, unlike his old school which had stacked it so high that Mount Everest found itself some competition. In fact, he'd only gotten one more piece of homework, which was to list all of the elements that the Mages could control. This he finished at school, hanging back, and then gave it in, leaving Mr Damashii extremely confused. It would only be a week until their first practical session with the Heartless in school, and Alex would rather prepare for fighting with the weapons available at school then write up reports on how Shadows manipulated their own bodies to turn two-dimensional. He had to pick: Dream Sword, Dream Shield or Dream Staff?

And, ever smiling, he would always pick the shield, replacing it with the Lockshield.

KHKHKH

He fell into the alleyway with a loud thud. Blurrily, he examined his new surroundings with a pair of dark chocolate eyes.

"Brilliant," he said as he discovered the distinctive outline of the rim of a large green skip. At least, he thought it was green. He couldn't see in colour, only in black and white. He didn't need to see in colour, anyway. He could tell things by shapes. Unfortunately, he now needed that distinction. The tons of rubbish inside, which he was currently sitting in, looked like leaves, pebbles and slate, despite actually being newspapers, decomposing bread from old burgers and sandwiches, heavy old clothes and plenty of tiny, unseen cigarettes. The people living in the city also frequently had renovations done to their houses, so planks of wood sat in the bin as well. That was what currently filled his vision at the moment.

He pulled himself up above the river of rubbish, looking painfully at his left hand as he did so. Behind the flesh-coloured glove was dirty, oil-ridden metal. Somebody he hated with all his heart had chopped off his left hand a short time ago, and had not only destroyed his hand but his links to his girlfriend. He sighed, before shaking his head of what seemed to be foaming water - but was actually old milkshake - and trying to climb off.

The trek to the edge, he found, was much more perilous. When normal skips were usually about half his height, this one was much bigger. He was now judging the journey to be something of five-hundred yards when, if he had been thrown down normally, everything seemed to have grown in size. Either that or...

He stopped. No, that couldn't be right. He couldn't have left home. The last thing he remembered was being held above the city by his neck and then being dropped.

But then there had been the screaming as he blacked out. There was no other reason they'd be so upset. There was no other reason she'd shriek like that-

KHKHKH

Alex jumped. If that had been his dream, he hoped that it wasn't a vision of the future. Sighing, he looked at the clock. There read the magic number. Twenty-three zero zero. He scowled. He hoped that not everything happened at eleven o' clock at night.

But, nevertheless, he was now completely wide awake and not wanting to be. Grumbling, he pushed himself up out of bed and walked over to the window.

He noticed a shape moving in the alleyway. A Heartless, now of all times? He mumbled something about having school the next day, even though it was actually Friday night, and began climbing out of the window.

"Wait." He looked up. The other Erica was stood there, her arms crossed. "Where are you going?"

Alex closed his eyes, trying to avoid it all, but it was no use. The armour appeared and his hair and eyes became green. He just _had_ to think about it, didn't he? Yeah, and thinking that he wasn't going to change would be thinking about it. There'd be no escape from all of this. "There's something going on outside," he said. "I don't know what's going on, but it just doesn't feel right. Like the Heartless are coming."

The other Erica let out a heavy sigh. "Alright," she said, then suddenly swung herself cleanly over the edge of the window, landing on her feet perfectly on the pavement five floors below. The way she brushed past him caused him to nearly fly off the ledge, and he gripped on with one hand. Meanwhile, the girl didn't notice at all. "But I'm coming too. You wouldn't let your sister do anything like this. It's only right she gets the fair share of adventure, what with you being the future of this family and all."

"But I thought she _loved_ being a pampered princess!" Alex said, trying to cross his arms and hold onto the side of the building at the same time.

She smiled. "You think all girls are cushy and sweet? Then how come whenever _FullMetal Alchemist_ has a death scene of one of the main characters, she cheers?" That one made Alex's face go blank. Oh, God, his sister was a sadist. "She's a lot different that you think."

Alex made a mental note never to speak to his sister about the assassination of Lieutenant Maes Hughes ever again, and instead concentrated on coming down. The damned yet familiar drum-roll became louder, zoning everything out until he couldn't hear anything else in the world. He stopped, trying to lose the beat, then continued, making sure to only use badly timed steps. The whole 'getting-hypnotised-by-beating' was really getting on his nerves. Before it had just seemed to be one of those mental things. Now it was little more than an annoyance and an obstruction in front of what he really needed.

Finally, he pushed himself onto solid ground, excusing himself from the usual kissing of the floor in salvation, and looked over the other side of the street.

KHKHKH

There was... a person? Two people. Approaching him. It seemed like he was in an alleyway just off a huge street. They looked like giants to him, towering over him. He jumped desperately, then hid behind the huge scratched plastic of the tip's side, scared and confused. He didn't want to be here, he wanted to be home with her. Why had they been separated, anyway?

His whole world had been ripped apart and thrown aside. The only way he could explain it all was by that. He wasn't meant to be here; it was all a mistake. The world should never have been lost.

He looked around for some form of escape. But his wings were hurt. There was no way he could use them now. It was decided then. He'd have to use physical force against them.

KHKHKH

Alex got nearer. Whatever this was, it was certainly a lot like his dream. In fact, he was almost sure he'd just jumped into his dream and that he'd wake up tomorrow morning in his bed with no spirit called Joumae, no Lockshield, no holy heart and no Sora. Everything was so surreal now...

Shaking his head, he held up his hand. The Lockshield appeared in his hand, taking the guise of the smaller Dream Shield. He'd gotten the idea when he'd first seen the practical sessions through the gymnasium window. He'd snuck in afterwards, taking a good look at it, before asking the image of Joumae in the silver underside of the Lockshield about whether it was possible to change the item's appearance. _Sure_, Joumae had said, _but it'd better be the appearance of another shield. I'll have to generate the illusion myself and I don't want to see you using a fake Keyblade. You're a Guardian, not a Warrior, pippo-mac!_

After a good stern talking-to about nicknames and another back about not insulting the experts, Joumae had finally decided that yes, he would generate the Lockshield's new cover. It wasn't a true imitation: it was bigger than the real thing and dealt a hell of a lot more damage to boot. And he certainly preferred it to everybody thinking he was a Heartless, when those were the things he really hated.

He groaned, peering into the alley with dark eyes. He wasn't able to properly identify anything in the darkness yet.

"You were so sure?" she smirked, and turned around. "Gullible."

"Witch." He looked up at the sky. "And I was - oomph!" Within seconds the small entity had dive-bombed him and force him onto the ground. He pushed himself up to see a male black-haired sprite like Yuna, Rikku and Paine in a white hooded jacket and embroidered jeans pointing a pair of dangerous-looking katana blades at him. Despite their small size - they looked like needles - they seemed more than able to draw a significant amount of blood from a human. "What the heck!?" Alex said to himself, before a small shoe pinned his lips together.

"Tell me now!" the little guy cried. "Where the hell am I? Where's Vic? Where's that good for nothing clone!?"

The interrogation came fast and thick, and Alex had little time to answer before one of the katana was held above his eye. Other Erica sighed, and picked the small boy up, while the Lockshield Wielder removed himself from the ground and growled at the tiny creature. He was only about thirty centimetres tall, like the YuRiPa. His hair was spiked up, some of it falling around his friendly brown eyes. Bursting out of his back were two glittering blue wings that looked like crystals. On his jeans was a detailed stitch of a purple dragon curling around his hip and thigh.

KHKHKH

A red eye surveyed them. The black-haired individual in the shadows was eager to see the brunet with the Lockshield out. That marked his target. Hey, it had been the marker described to him by his family; he wasn't going to miss his chance yet.

"So, that's Karsath, right?" he asked himself. "I wonder... does he bleed like everybody else in the world?"

The raccoons in the bin looked up at him, curious. This strange white, cloaked creature - others said they were called humans? - was looking at the others in the same way that adolescent male animals would do so to challenge each other to a fight. He held an object, too - an object of pain. It was a double-bladed sword he was clinging onto. Where had they learned the word sword, anyway? He guessed it was from the man who had walked passed their hideout about three weeks ago. The thing he had carried had been called a sword, and this wing-like item was too similar to be a coincidence. A place to hold and a place to stab. Classy.

Murderous.

And people said animals couldn't be critics.

* * *

Hb: And there's that chapter.


	9. Chapter 9

**Hawkblade: And here's Umiyuri with the disclaimer.**

**Disclaimer from Umi'-chan: I don't own Alex, Erica, Joumae, Other Erica, Lockshield (Newbie-Spud); Shadowflash (Hawkblade); Isaac (Gregzilla); Edward Elric, Winry Rockbell (Hiromu Arakawa); **_**Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles**_** (God knows who made them); Sephiros, Living Bones (SQUARE ENIX); running people (Portland).

* * *

**

The tiny boy began to punch out at them with his right hand. "Hey, come on!" His voice was the same basic pitch as most boys, and that startled him a little. "I'm warning you! Don't make use the other hand!"

Alex choked back a few laughs, the shield disappearing in a blast of smoke. "What are you going to do to us, midget? Indent us a little?" He held out the back of his hand, and the fairy gave a very forceful punch with left hand. He quickly withdrew, hissing, and checked the skin. It had been welted, and his middle finger didn't seem to work anymore. He snapped the bone back into place. "Damn it, that's one strong hand!" he said.

"Yeah! What did you expect from automail?" the kid answered back.

"_Automail_!?" Other Erica cheered, changing back into Erica. At once, the armour was replaced with a set of old _Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles_ pyjamas and warm bed socks which Alex then proceeded to cover up, embarrassed to be found outside in them. "You mean, real automail? Just like Edward Elric has!?"

"Automail," Alex muttered, tapping his lip. "Who made it for you?"

"Some nice girl on another world," replied the small sprite. "I think her name was Wendy, something like that."

At that point Erica but in. "Winry, right? Winry Rockbell?" If you needed somebody who had memorised every part of _FullMetal Alchemist_'s anime, manga, movie and novels, then you had come to the right place. She was Portland's living Wikipedia of all the information surrounding the young Amestrian alchemist. He didn't much like her being visited by anime nerds who wanted to argue their cases against her knowledge, along with Aeris and Sephiros, but they were all rather proud whenever those obsessive idiots went home deflated. At least the girl had a major grade in something. They were just not happy about the fact that it was to do with a cartoon character.

"Could it be Winry? I don't remember very well," the boy answered. "S'funny, I don't know the name of the kid who saved my life by giving me ways of going about it again."

Erica's eyes were sparkling and Alex rolled his eyes. Finally, he'd found something about his life his sister liked and it was all because of a tiny metal hand. Where on earth was the equivalent exchange in that?

KHKHKH

"So, Karsath boy, what are you going to do about the Shadowflash smidgen?" the boy in black murmured. "Take him home and get cosy with your new friend?"

His mouth curled up into a grin.

"I don't think so."

KHKHKH

"We'd better go back in the house," he said. "You never know what we're going to bump into next."

"You never do." He whipped around at the voice. Childish, but still threatening. Erica stepped closer to Alex, carrying the boy in her hands. He didn't seem to enjoy it very much, and hit her fingers, allowing him to fly up again into the air. Alex jumped as he saw the visitor from another world begin to fly away from them, and steadied himself for an assault. It wouldn't do well to be unprepared when he knew there was an enemy approaching.

The small child pulled out the katana blades again. Now that he could actually tell their size, he realised how non-threatening and toy-like they were. Maybe having anything held at your neck changed your views of any weapon into being as a killer. He was holding toothpicks, for Christ's sake! "Show yourself!"

Stepping out from the darkness came a dark, feminine shape. Alex gripped the shield's handle so hard it would probably snap under the pressure. A boot stepped out and moonlight hit the face of a pale-skinned thirteen-year-old boy with reddish-black hair and one visible demonic eye, the other lid closed with a strangely deflated slump. He was dressed in a dark grey shirt that only reached to his midriff, a black undershirt and ebony leather trousers; the rest of him was decorated, in a sense, with straps, belts and a large arched cape with a golden ring fastener. A bleeding set of bandages hung around his neck with two green eyes drawn on.

He held up his weapon, a pair of devil wings transformed into a double-bladed sword with a braided hilt.

The flying boy jumped and growled. "You! Hey, you done mooching off my girlfriend yet, _eyeball_!?" he yelled.

The younger bit his lip in contempt. "Well, hello," he said. "Hey, weren't you bigger back in your homeworld, Shadowflash?"

"Definitely bigger than you," he growled. "And why did you bother laying hands on her, anyway? She was my girlfriend and you tried to steal her from me!"

"She came to me, idiot!" the stranger spat back. "She didn't like being with you. You were too chicken. And once that other you came along, well... you were pretty much finished in her eyes, weren't you?"

Alex scrunched up his face and screamed. He had had enough of the talking already. "Alright, can you guys just _shut up_ and tell me what the _heck_ is going on here!?" he yelled. "In case you haven't noticed, it's the middle of the night! I'm flippin' tired! My nerves are worse than frayed and I've just walked into two complete strangers who then begin to argue _without_ regards for present company!" The armour flashed onto his body and, for once, he didn't stumble when it happened. "And worst of all, if there's a real Heartless out here tonight I'm gonna ignore it 'cause I'm gonna end up thinking it's you two and tomorrow morning I'll be walking up to an empty city! _Is that what you want_!?"

A few moments of silence passed, in which Erica saw fit to hide behind the big green skip. Something told her that her brother was completely unsettled. She'd seen Joumae come out before - she and her Other shared their memories, being the same person - but this time, things were different. She'd never seen Alex be so angry before.

It scared her. He wasn't supposed to be like this. He was supposed to be the sensible one of the family and here he was going insane!

"Maybe I do want that, Alexander Karsath," said the strange boy, making his eyes widen. How on earth did he know his name? Wait, never mind earth, how in all the worlds? "Maybe I do want for you to rot in pain and misery as you watch your entire family succumb to darkness. After all, that's where everybody came from in the beginning and that's where everybody will go in the end. Isn't that right, Shadowflash?"

Shadowflash crossed his arms. "I'm never going to agree with you, eyeball!" he hissed, raising the twin katana. "You stupid _bastard_, stealing my girlfriend!" He shot off at the boy, but the black-haired pre-teen raised his hand to block lazily, yawning. Shadowflash flew straight into the open palm and ricocheted back, his eyes making confused circles in his skull.

The mystery boy began to brush his hair out of his closed eye with his fingers and yawned. "Yeah, yeah. Put a sock in it," he mumbled, then turned serious again. He looked at Alex, holding his gaze. "Right, Alexander, I bet you're thinking we're both completely crazy. We both came from other worlds. One came by accident; he's in your care now. The other came to kill you." He checked his fingernails. "But I never do these kinds of things by hand, so I decided to employ something to take care of you. A few somethings, actually." He snapped his fingers and gestured down the road. Panicking, the two Karsaths dodged around the corner to see something they really shouldn't have been in the middle of Portland. "I'm guessing your teacher Mr Damashii told you about...

"These?" It was a huge pair of Heartless with terribly bony bodies, about six-foot-tall each. The little flesh and fur that these dinosaur-like animals had upon their skeletons was a greyed shade of blue. Huge yellow eyes glared out from their freakish skulls, which had two impressively curled horns on each of them, and large sets of sharp teeth. Upon their cartilage tails sat a round, fake head with spiking jaws. Although they was missing arms, they had heavy feet and blood red anklets. If you got caught underfoot you'd be crushed almost straight away.

Alex took a few seconds, but he could soon see just what he was up against. A pair of Living Bones were now rampaging their home street.

The strange boy smiled again. "My brother told me you know what these are. I guess that also means you know what happens next. Hmm?"

"Your brother!?" Alex yelled back, then pulled Erica out of the way of the giants' path. Every step the two monsters took brought pieces of pavement flying out of the road. Lights went on and worried people came rushing down the fire escape stairs of the apartment buildings, pointing to and screaming at the strange demons. Growling, he ran out into the middle of street through the hordes of people trying to run away while the Lockshield transformed to its regular appearance.

One of the monsters roared loudly, pushing him back with its own breath. To put it lightly, it stank of dead rats, sherry and Aeris's cooking. He waved a hand in front of his nose, trying to shoo the dirty air away from his lungs, then ran forth bravely. He held the Lockshield up to the light and jumped, landing an aerial attack on the animal's shoulder. The blade on the edge of the shield hacked directly through the Heartless's flesh, shedding some kind of tar-like liquid. He blinked. It was something like the mess he had sunken into back on the first night he, or his body anyway, had ever fought the Heartless.

Landing, he darted back to strike another blow. The beast became enraged and began to stomp on the floor before charging. He jumped in shock. Great, now it was going to run him down! Oh, well, he'd had a good life.

Joumae caught him in the back of the shield. _Idiot! Parry it!_

"What!?" he cried.

_Just do it! I'm the expert here, buddy-boy!_

He snarled and readied himself. This was going to be insane. He was going to die. He was going to die... Just as the Living Bone reached him, he brought up a knock with the front of the shield. The dark being caught it in the middle of its jaws and jammed down, attempting to scrunch the metal up, or break it in two. Alex tensed, correcting his footing. He wasn't going to let this big Natural History Museum escapee push him over just to get to some civilians. He was there to protect them, just like a Keyblader should. It then briefly hit him that he was not a Keyblader, and he shook the thoughts out of his head. No way did he need an identity crisis now of all times!

He spared the boy another look. He did look very familiar.

"_Greg Zivaku_!?"

The younger boy gave a tense face. "Greg? You mean Gregory? He gouged my eyes out." He opened the slightly loose eyelid with his fingers to reveal an empty socket. Alex, Erica and Shadowflash all stuck their tongues out in disgust. "But you're good with your eyes, Alexander."

Alex gave a wide smirk. "Call it intuition, or the ability to recognise people's haircuts," he replied, then forced forward. The Living Bone, having relaxed, was pushed back and Alex followed through with a good air combo. He stepped back - it was still alive; and it was coming for more.

Shadowflash hovered down. "Alex, right?" he said hurriedly. "No worries, mate, but I think your little sister's in trouble!" The boy whipped around to see the other Heartless had already cornered her. He nearly swore (thankfully not doing so, due to his self-censorship policy) and hurried over to Erica, waving a bit madly at her. She peered over.

"Alex!" she cried, but the creature began to block her in. She squeaked. "Hey, help me here!"

"I'm coming!" he yelled, and ran towards her. Gregory's brother snapped his fingers again, repeatedly this time, and Alex stopped. No... not that again... urgh, what was going on!? Once again the beat was wiping all other sounds away again like some kind of sonic whitewash. Even Joumae wasn't getting over the noise. He couldn't hear his heartbeat, he couldn't hear Erica, he couldn't hear the people, and he couldn't hear the Shadows that rose from the floor in a row to block him from his sister. His vision was beginning to cloud over, just like his mind.

And then one of them grabbed his leg and his eyes snapped open. He kicked up, sending the little guy up into space. A few of the neighbours stopped in their tracks to watch their Alexander Karsath, their local reserved nerd who was normally too nice for his own good, suddenly lash out and thunder straight through the enemies, reducing them to little more than smoke. And they began to cheer for him as he fought. Hey, he was clearing the monsters out like a group of sixteen-year-old guys from a gushy romantic movie theatre! And he was the only one who was doing it, although the tiny sprite seemed to be doing a good job taking them apart as well.

Alex ran forward and grabbed onto the Living Bone's fur. He had an idea. That lion cub had managed to kill the Heartless by sitting on its back in that small film he'd been shown in school. Maybe, if he did this right, he could too.

But maybe he'd have to be a cat!

_I'm not going to turn you into one!_ Joumae yelled from somewhere, and Alex looked back into the shield to see the reflection of the spirit.

"You mean you could!?" Alex whispered frantically back, and kept pulling on the fur. Maybe he could drag it backwards instead. Yeah, maybe that would work. It certainly worked whenever he needed to move a dog. Surely a huge dead dinosaur-monster-skeleton-thing would be moved in the same way. He just had to believe in himself!

Joumae groaned. _Even if I could, I wouldn't want to, stilt-legs!_ he grumbled. _Then I'd be a cat and trust me, you never want to see me as a cat. Claws, baby!_

"I didn't need you to say that," Alex murmured. "I can guess that part for myself." He then retired from that dumb idea to try and get on as he was. Humans could rodeo too.

Unfortunately, getting on would require a leg-up. He may have been quite tall for his age, but it still wasn't enough to get on the creature's back. He needed to direct the thing away from Erica and to a raised platform. By then he could have just killed the thing anyway. 'Anyway' meaning hack-and-slashing.

Luckily, it began to turn around. It looked back to see a very embarrassed and very petrified brunet holding onto its fur. Alex gave it the biggest smile he could muster. "Hello..." A deep growling echoed from inside the empty skull. "...oops." With a single strike, the beast managed to knock him ten foot upwards. You could hear the boy yelling as he flew through the air. You could hear his fear at how high he was now; the floor was not going to be a pleasant friend to him today. You could also hear said wailing subside into a surprised yelp as he landed in the saddle of the other Living Bone. He jumped. What the... who planned that trajectory? Not that he was complaining - this was actually quite beneficial to his plan!

He hand on to the saddle tightly. Come on... _now_! He grabbed the saddle horn and pulled up on it. The creature complied, the saddle being part of its flesh, and leapt up, just like the one in the video. Alex closed his eyes. God, did he hate heights. And now he was going to land and kill himself all over again. Just brilliant.

He was rising. Then he was falling.

The Living Bone rammed itself down into the floor upon its forehead, forcing the skull backwards into the neck. Alex's own head shrunk back into his shoulders, and he clenched his teeth as he heard the skull smash together so that it could fit into the ribbing. The sound was sickening. Not only that, but the event left Alex incredibly close to the floor. He was close to fainting: his head had nearly been knocked in too. The asphalt wasn't exactly fully intact either.

Then, scarily, the thing he was riding managed to get back up! However, now it was blinded. Good news and bad. The creature ran about in a mad rush and its equally blinded friend hurried over, abandoning the hopes of taking Erica's heart. Scared, Alex hung on for dear life as he spotted his chance to make the move again. This time, however, he wasn't going to attempt suicide. He tugged the saddle horn and then leapt off, running for the alley. He grabbed Erica and Shadowflash's hands and pulled them away.

KHKHKH

Isaac smiled and walked out of the alley into the black portal sitting in the shadows. Somebody was already on the other side.

"Hello, Isaac," another boy said, poking his head through. "I've been waiting for you a while now. What the _hell_ were you doing!?"

"Gregory, Gregory, Gregory," Isaac sighed. "I was just informing our new friend who's boss."

Gregory rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. You showed him that he was boss and that the Heartless are just lackeys. You know what that does to a young mind; you're meant to be just as smart as me!"

KHKHKH

The thing hit the ground again, breaking into fragments and a heart. The shockwave uprooted the other one...

...and a pair of young teenagers, the third being a flying being. Good thing that they weren't the ones killed.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

Hb: You must check last chapter or the one before for disclaimer. Ya, I only do these in the story but I'm being lazy.

* * *

Alex walked into the road and grumbled to himself. Those things shouldn't have come near him at all. And what was Gregory's brother doing with the Heartless? The kid really needed to put a lead on his little brother or something, get him away from the darkness. Then take him to a pet shop somewhere where, while being rehabilitated, he could be taught how to play fetch and... how to chase your own tail when you didn't have one, among other, strange things that dogs do... tonight had messed with his brain. And his sense of being tired. Now he felt really energetic for some reason.

He took one look around and became very close to terribly annoying that self-censor. Everybody had seen the Heartless attack; now what was going to happen?

_Snap!_ He looked over to one side of the street to see Derest and Okan. What were those guys doing here? Well, Okan was holding a camera, and he'd just taken the picture. Derest appeared to be dressed in a long tweed coat and a bowler hat. Not only that, but he was equipped with a notepad and pen, which were currently resting in his hands. Obviously he was there to take notes, but what did he need to take notes for?

Erica pulled his sleeve. " Alex, what's going on here?" she asked quietly.

"They all saw the Heartless attack and they all saw me beat the snot out of them." He kept his expression grim. "Plus there's this little guy here-"

"Don't call me little!" Shadowflash said, clenching his fist. Alex remembered the small injury on his hand and decided to ignore him, but took the lesson of never calling him 'little' to heart. Although, did it extend to the synonyms? That was the real question.

"-who just happens to be small, winged and floating. I think they're incredibly freaked out." His eyes darted around, looking for a way out. Then he realised something: Okan and Derest had a gap between them to get out. He could speak to them and run at the same time. "Alright, Erica, Shadowflash. The second I say 'go', we run for those guys over there."

"Couldn't we just make up a story?" Erica asked.

"I'm not having you telling your stories; they're more unbelievable than the Heartless themselves!" Alex countered. He stood completely still. "Alright, three, two... go!" The three of them broke into a run away from the group of people, heading for the blond and purple-hair. The pair complied, moving out of the way like a pair of pillars and framing their gateway to freedom.

As they got to the end of the street, Alexander once again got close to swearing. He'd just had a sudden epiphany, and not a very pleasant one at that. "Oh... flip! We were right outside our apartment!" Okan smiled crazily, and Alex gave him a strange eye. The blond just stood their aimlessly, looking around. Now that they weren't in school, the young Venomati was instead dressed in quite light clothing - a pair of blue trousers and a white vest with a pair of heavy boots and thick gardener's gloves. At least, Alex thought they were gardener's gloves: they were made of a shiny, scaly material that glittered in the beam of the yellow streetlamps.

Okan caught the interest. "Oh, dragon hide," he explained quickly. "They came from some place called... Diagon Alley, I think."

"There's even a _Harry Potter_-based world out there?" the one brunet wondered aloud. He'd never liked that series. Way too advertised. It was even advertised in this story. Now read them, before the author gets out her shotgun.

"There's more than one world out there, you know!" Derest replied. "Where do you think all the ideas for all of Earth's books and movies came from? people's imagination? Hah!" He crossed his arms. "Once you get to Earth, your imagination comes in rarely. All that you guys dream is usually happening in another dimension or world, just a little edited to suit your world's rules. I bet that even if we're all humans on the outside, we're all completely different on the inside. Most Earth-dwellers don't understand even _magic_."

Now that he looked, Derest was also out of uniform. He was wearing something that looked like Sherlock Holmes's costume - the trench coat definitely seemed to support that theory, excluding the fact that the fabric was thick and definitely scratchy. The black bowler hat replaced his bandanna, which was now around his neck, next to a blue and purple yin-yang pendant. He was wearing slippers, and evidently had walked out of the house without time to change clothes. The bags under his eyes were clear.

"Humans don't understand how it's possible to use magic spells in a world created mainly by processes that we can identify with science," Alex corrected.

Shadowflash swooped down. "Well, I'm human and I do." He put out his flash hand. "Name's Hawk Shadowflash, unpleased to meet you!"

Alex raised an eyebrow at the tiny boy. "How can you be unpleased? It was better we found you in that dumpster rather than the garbage men discover you in the morning!"

Now it was Shadowflash's turn to fall. He was so caught up in his shock that his wings stopped flapping and he began to fall. "That was a dumpster? It was huge! And filled with... what was it filled with, again?" he asked sheepishly.

"Stale bread, papers, timber, clothes, leaves, dirty diapers, fruit peels and plenty of cigarettes," Alex said, his face blanker than a piece of paper. "And I think there was mayo thrown in it the first time we had it in the street at all, so the bottom of it's now all messed up and it stinks. Now, if you guys can tell me just this one little thing: what in the name of Jesus Christ is going on here!?"

Erica growled. "I wanna know too, brother, I'm part of this family, I have a right to know what goes on in this school of yours!"  
Alex stared at her. His little sister sure was growing up. For the first time he'd seen her stand up for herself, which was unusual considering how she was actually weaker than an ant after running the marathon and back again.

"What on earth happened to innocence?"

"It caught the midnight train."

"But we still have _fifty-five_ minutes to midnight."

"Yesterday's midnight train."

"Ah." Alex sighed, wondering where that small bit of conversation had taken them (if anywhere) and pulled the group off again. This time they were going to get back into the apartment.

KHKHKH

Sephiros yawned and walked through the door of the bedroom to notice Alex coming in with Erica, the Lockshield and a trio of people he didn't know. He sighed; he was just about to get to bed as well. He was donning some old red-and-white pinstriped pyjamas that he'd found in his cupboard. He knew he was getting old when he didn't remember if these were his or the property of his son-in-law, but the absence of the man wasn't helping his memory one bit.

He approached them. He'd had to tie his hair back in a loose braid in order to sleep without messing it up too much, and his two grandchildren were beginning to snigger. The smallest of them, who was actually floating around in the air and just tall enough to curl up and hide in one of Alex's shoes, wasn't laughing, however, and neither were the two life-sized strangers.

"What's going on, Alexander?" he asked. "Especially at this hour."

Alex bowed in respect. "Pardon me, grandpa," he said, apologising. "It's just that I had to leave on a total whim and when I actually got there, it turned out that it wasn't a whim at all."

Sephiros raised his eyebrow. So his grandson had run into trouble again... at the same number of the clock as the first time he had done so. "What happened?" he asked, fearing the answer to be... well, bad. Worse than normal would be more accurate in his head, though.

"I had this weird dream about falling into the dumpster outside," Alex said, sighing. He wasn't going to get anywhere, he could sense it. "So I woke up, looked out my window. I spotted something in the alley and I went to check. The other Erica came and tried to follow, and it turned out it was Hawk." He closed his eyes. "This weirdo guy with one eye then turned up and set some Heartless out on the street. I had to take them down when the neighbours flooded out of their homes and began watching me. So we had to run."

The silver-haired man blinked. "And your problem was...?"

"Well, apart from the entire block now knowing about the Heartless, my having a new worst enemy and the fact that Hawk here has an automail hand, the type of which I've only ever seen made by Winry Rockbell," and Alex took a deep breath, "people from other worlds falling from the sky doesn't strike you as odd?"

"It's what happened last time," Sephiros said. He yawned again, and gestured to an archway. "Couch?"

Alex nodded. "Couch."

It was a good thing that neither parent had really tried anything distinctive with the living room, for Aeris was a strange decorator. Her tastes involved mint green, baby pink, light browns, gold and silver, which meant that the whole almost looked insane with some of these colour combinations. Her husband, on the other hand, favoured dark blues and purples, with a dash of mahogany. After having their first - and only - marital spat over how to paint the flat, Sephiros, the wise man that he was, had suggested the pair keep the walls white and make the furniture dark. As the story went, the couple had followed his advice, keeping everything minimalist. Only, Aeris was allowed to hang various modern art paintings on the wall.

The sofa itself was basically a pair of very long navy wool-covered cushions on a pine frame. Alex sank down uneasily into it, while Okan jumped in and Derest simply stood. Erica found it smart to sit on Alex's lap; he proceeded to push her off slightly. Erica leaned on him. He growled, ticked, and gradually surrendered.

Sephiros sat in the armchair across the low table. "A long time ago, when I wielded the Keyblade, things went quite, well, wrong. Worlds fell and no matter what I could do, the people were forever scattered across the remaining lands, many never to see each other again."

"Never again," Hawk muttered, his eyes watering.

"I was desperate - no, more than that. I so wanted to right what was wrong that I travelled from planet to planet, gathering as many people as I could and trying to find them a safe home. When no other world came up that I could think of, I turned to our home, Earth. It is one of the largest single worlds in existence, Alexander, and it is also one of the most warlike. Amazingly, because of the darkness of man the Heartless were unable to break through and take the world's heart to destroy it. Not only that, but masses were dying in wars, leaving several countries of the world without people to live in them and to prosper, to build the country up into an economic success.

"Surprisingly, one of these countries was the United States of America. The people weren't recovering too well from the mess with Germany and Austria-Hungary. In order for them to feel complete, I decided to... _donate_ a few new American citizens."

"You increased the population... with aliens," said Alex.

"That's an _insult_!" Derest, Okan and Hawk shouted simultaneously.

"Well, my sanity's pretty much gone anyway," Alex argued, "I might as well get the last bits out of my skull."

Sephiros ignored the comments and bowed his head. "I was a fool. After many heard of what I had done, suddenly they all wanted to come to Earth too, and escape the Heartless. Refugees began to flood in. A lot of them chose to come to America, some selecting Europe or Asia instead. Portland, though this may sound completely ridiculous, was mostly advertised around because it was my home, the home of the Keyblader, the one who could protect them all.

"And that's when it began. As each world succumbed to darkness, the inhabitants of those worlds were mysteriously dropped off here like the cat's mouse. It was my job to relocate them, no matter what I thought about it. So started College du SacreCœur."

"You said you went to SacreCœur, not started it!" Alex suddenly realised.

The One-Winged Angel sighed. "I was keeping that particular gem from your mother for a good reason," he said. "She wouldn't stop fretting about you going to a strange school. I started the place when I was just eighteen years old to house people from other worlds. That would have been enough to get young Aeris worrying about your safety, knowing I'd made it. She's never really trusted me. I had to lie to her and in front of her just so you would be accepted."

"Real smooth move, feather-man," Alex muttered. "Now, next order of business, Okan, Derest, why were you in my street in the first place?"

Derest took the initiative. "Okan's got a special talent for seeing things he's generally not supposed to," he explained. "Hence why he's so crazy. He's seen things that human eyes shouldn't be allowed to witness."

"Like my brother and his girlfriend getting to third base," Okan supplied.

"Yeah, like - what the...?" Derest shot Okan a confused expression. "I'd no idea it was that bad."

The blond got a very odd look on his face and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He laid the camera on the table. "It was bad. He made me watch."

"Can we get off this subject, please?" Alex, Erica, Hawk and Sephiros said collectively. Okan smiled nervously, then piped down for once, his more excitable expression gone. For once he actually looked intelligent.

Derest shook his head in amusement, then continued as best as he could. "Well, this idiot has something akin to foresight," he said. "Right before ten, he phoned me up saying something was going to happen involving you and gave me your street name. Heck, he gave me your flat number too. Naturally, I had to come, seeing as your weapon is marked with the insignia of the Heartless. And Okan's tip-off was incredibly accurate, too. You are related to the Heartless coming here after all."

Alex grunted, as teenagers were wont to do. At thirteen, it seemed most boys lost their ability to communicate in any methods other than grumbling and pick-up lines. Hawk squeaked instead, unable to make deeper sounds with his tiny larynx. Erica stared at them both, and heaved a sigh.

"Next question," said Alex, "how on earth does Hawk know Gregory Zivaku's brother?"

"Zivaku?" Sephiros exclaimed, waking up for real now. "Alex, you should never befriend either of these Zivaku brothers. It would be a disastrous choice for you!"

Alex crossed his arms. "I never said I _befriended_ them, it's Hawk who knows him!"

A pair of eyes drifted over to the flying individual, who hovered down to rest on Alex's head. The feeling was a bit strange, and because of the weight his hair felt thicker and more like a pillow than it did in days before. So this was what it felt like to have a living creature on your head? He had to commend Ash Ketchum for allowing Pikachu to do that so many times. It was pretty annoying.

"Alright. You wanna know?" Hawk muttered. "He stole my girlfriend. That's right, my one reason for living left me for that freak with one eye. I do all I can for her - I even give up my left hand - and for _what_? For her to give me the finger and waltz off into the arms of a thirteen-year-old boy? And then worse, another me pops up who looks just like me bar the hair colour and tries to kill me."

Everybody stared. There was another Hawk... it all sounded like what had happened to Erica, but at the same time it probably wasn't. If Hawk's heart had been taken, then surely he would have mentioned that! But he hadn't, so it confused them all. Surely it wasn't like this other Hawk was a clone... right? And, as usual, Alex's logic had decided to take a hike just to believe what was going on around him.

KHKHKH

The red-haired girl looked up at the solid silver statuette on top of the building. It showed a large seabird. It could have been an albatross, but the feathers were much too spiky and its head was larger. It was wearing a jewel around its neck that gleamed red like a ruby, and was filled with power. The beak was smooth, but open and holding what looked like a feather quill. Many people understood that the pen referred to writing poetry and stories. What the pen actually signified was drawing, but the meaning had been lost with the years.

And it wasn't always there. During the day the statue mysteriously flew off elsewhere. There were eye-witness reports from inside the Faction that something odd was going on. And it had also appeared out of nowhere around one hundred years ago. It had been in the newspapers that it was set up with a tag that read something in kanji with sans-serif lettering. Some believed it was from a Japanese immigrant who had placed it there in love of the country. The Faction did not.

And that was why her main job was to apprehend the statue and take it somewhere safe. It wouldn't do for something from another world to go completely unnoticed like that. The Faction wanted to know where it had come from, and why it kept running away.

She easily scaled the stairs within a few minutes, being agile enough. A few years of training had made her faster than a cheetah. The building was only a few floors tall, anyway. However, the group weren't ready to take their chances.

She climbed up onto the roof to see that her target had suddenly gone missing. She looked around. Surely the statue couldn't have run off right now! It wasn't even midnight yet!

"Are you trying to steal me?" said a sweet, sugary voice, and the girl turned around to see another female in a black dress. "Sure, I like both and both like me, but you're just _not_ my type."

"You're confusing me, Shirube," the redhead growled. "What are you doing awake right now?"

Shirube crossed her arms. "Well, I can't let anybody grab me like that, now, can I?" she said, relaxing back. "Hey, I'm only ninety-eight, can't let anybody try that while I'm still so young! I might end up losing my _value_!" In response, the girl whipped out a small pistol and fired three times. Shirube flew upwards with incredible speed, dodging all of them with a smile on her face and waving a peace sign repeatedly. Only now did the thief realise that the mysterious girl was floating in air like a paper bag. Or a sprite...

"Ninety-eight, huh? Young indeed, for a masterpiece like you. But you're still not getting away!" The auburn-haired teenager lurched out at the other-worlder. A few seconds later she grabbed air. She looked down and realised with a gasp where she was.

She'd jumped off the roof. She began to fall like a rock until-

"On the contrary," Shirube chanted, carrying the girl down by the back of her shirt, "I think I'll be getting away just _fine_, thank you!"

* * *

Hb: Bye for now!


	11. Chapter 11

Hb: Hn... tired. I no own, story copyright Umiyuri Papaeyra (friend of mine) and check the disclaimer a few chapters back for everything else.

* * *

The weekend passed by without any more hitches. Aeris, to the surprise of Sephiros, welcomed the family's three new friends into her home when the boys came back on the Saturday night, after the others had gotten some well-needed rest. She met and greeted Derest and Okan just before going into work. Something not overlooked was how the two suddenly looked extremely faint whenever she walked into the room. Hawk was also invited to stay, having no real home to go to now that his world had been destroyed. The boy accepted, and now took residence in the top of Alex's closet; Erica made him a shoebox bed and even found a doll's coat and nightshirt that he could use.

The highlight of the time, however, was that Gregory Zivaku's brother decided not to visit again, which was definitely a relief to poor Alex. He'd been dreading through out the weekend that the strange boy might turn up while he was asleep and slit his throat silently. It had been a blessed moment when he realised how those two free days passed by without incident, and he had rested back into his now ancient routine of playing video games, writing fan-fiction and daydreaming.

This was where we found Alex now, on the morning of that Monday. Unfortunately, none of his daydreams these days were very dreamy. In fact, they were more like nightmares, except for the by now obvious fact that it was happening at quarter to eight. Alex was just about ready to go to school, thanks to Aeris's babying over him yet again. It wasn't like he couldn't do up a tie. He could put on his own uniform, _damn it_, woman!

A few seconds passed, and Alex finally slumped over onto the kitchen table. His daydreaming was very much like this: he went into an unconscious state almost mimicking sleep, but his eyes were half-open. Alex couldn't sleep with his eyes open, a fact the family already knew. And it would take a lot more than just keeling over while sitting down to kill the boy.

However, Hawk was blissfully unaware of the situation as a whole. So when he flew down the stairs in the strangely frilly nightshirt with lace on the hemline and saw Alex blurry-eyed with his head lying on the table and his mouth slightly open, he naturally thought that the brunet had yielded to some kind of flash disease and then began throwing around accusations.

"Oh, God!" Hawk dived down and sat next to the boy's face, poking him in the nose repeatedly. "Alex? Alex! You okay? Somebody get a doctor!"

At this point, Alex's good old word alert triggered and he jumped up. "Doctor!? _Where_!? I'm _not_ getting my shots!!! _Save me_, angel in-" He looked down at Hawk, who waved ashamedly. "-angel in a baptism dress?"

Hawk growled. "It's not a dress, it's a nightshirt!" he retorted, ignoring the baptism part. "And what were you doing dead on the table, anyway?"

Alex groaned and rested his head on his hand. "Oh, today's the day I'm supposed to be doing the practical fight in school," he said in a voice so low it was almost inaudible. "But I keep having these weird dreams where that Zivaku pops up out of nowhere and sets a Kurt Zisa on me. After that... I can't really remember any more of it. It just all sinks away."

Hawk sighed, and sat down next to him. "Well, it isn't like I'm gonna be any use for sleep problems," he said. "After all, that bed your sister made? Perfect. King-size. I'd no idea there was a world where cotton wool was so huge and fluffy!"

Alex smiled. "What's it like being that little, then?" he asked, remembering the rant he'd gotten for using the word last night.

Thankfully, however, there was no reaction this time. "Everything feels a thousand times rougher and a million times softer," he said. "I mean that some stuff like the fibre in the fabric is huge to me, so it feels a little weird, but stuff like the cotton wool - the airspace's bigger. You can just sink down and dream like there's no tomorrow." His face turned serious. "But now nobody can take me seriously. My voice has gone up about half an octave thanks to the shrinking. I'm wearing rag doll clothes! My swords look like the masts on a bottle ship and my head's grown in size. I'm like a bobble head." Then he grinned. "But I take up less space than your shoes, that's for sure."

This was abruptly followed by Alex running after him with a broomstick and the Lockshield, viciously batting away at the black-haired sprite while the small boy wailed in pain.

KHKHKH

Sora pushed himself up in his bed, arching his back. He winced at the crack of his spine, but still got up and smoothed out the crinkles in his outfit. He'd fallen asleep in his clothes from the night before, a loose blue shirt and his regular jeans. He still wore his socks and sandals, and a sweatband on his wrist. The wide collar of the shirt revealed the scar, and he brought his hand up to it. It was aching, and some of the threads from the pillow had been caught in the scabbing. He tugged some out.

"Urgh, can't believe it. Another bad night. What is it about Portland that really messes with our sleep patterns?" he asked himself, and the blond boy in the mirror stood up from his identical-reversed bed in the imaginary room opposite. It had also just woken from a terrible sleep, being that they had the same nightmares. The mirror's body copied his movements in every way, so that they even lashed about under the covers the same.

_Maybe it's to do with what us two share_, it supplied.

Sora frowned. "Something like that cannot simply be rid of in a flash. We carry that tax and will do so forever."

The mirror boy could have laughed. _Are you kidding? You didn't always carry that burden. If you always did, then I think we'd be stuck for it forever._

"Oh, hah, hah, hah," Sora bit sarcastically, and tugged off the shirt. The reflection had decided that it would never need to change its clothes. That was what made it so strange. Despite matching him in every single way, it chose never to copy the daily routine, only the involuntary movements that he made by accident. So, if he was near the department store window and he fell over a pavement slab, then the blond imitated, either by choice or not. If he chose to tip his hat, then it didn't. As confusing and impossible as it was, the mirror was a different person. Sighing pathetically, he grabbed at his necklace.

At least, he could if he was wearing the thing. He blinked, his hand on his chest as he realised the pendant had disappeared from around his neck. He uprooted the bed and checked underneath the rug and all the furniture.

"Oh, crap! Where'd it go?"

The mirror boy looked out. _What's wrong?_

"What else? My pendant's gone! My favourite pendant is _gone_!" Sora cried, poking his head up. In the space of ten seconds he had rummaged through his cupboard, tossing most of his clothes onto the floor. He was half-buried in them now.

KHKHKH

Alex walked into the school, and was quickly joined by Okan, Grace and Derest. He was rubbing his head repeatedly, and the trio looked at him awkwardly.

"Are you okay, Alex?" Grace asked. The boy stopped, rubbed his temples, cleared his throat, screamed, and then continued walking. The three other-worlders exchanged worried glances before running up to him. "Hello, Mr Legend? Are you okay?"

Finally they got an answer. "No" was the disgruntled reply from the teenager who proceeded to slump onto his locker and slide down onto the floor. "The practical," he explained. "I really don't want to do it. I can see Greg's little brother just waltzing up to me and cutting my head off." He groaned. "It's not a pleasant mental image. Not only that, but we haven't learned any magic yet, so I can't use that, and the Lockshield's out of bounds as soon as I step into the arena."

Derest shrugged. "No help from other people either," he noted. "I can see why you're panicking."

"No access to Joumae and no Potions, only my own experience to help me," Alex said, stretching. "I couldn't get any sleep last night thanks to the Heartless attack at the weekend and having to look after Hawk. I'm totally _bushed_." He got up and walked on ahead, leaving the group behind and very confused.  
He wandered around the halls lonely. Hundreds of students were passing through, and many he managed to recognise going through this school on his second week. Hey, it helped to have been somewhere twice before!

He spotted Xeno from fourth grade talking to Sarah. He waved to them. The students were both girls, despite Xeno's boyish clothing, and good friends. Heck, they were almost inseparable, if it weren't for Xeno's brother Michael. They were twins, but Michael was very commanding.

Ella (everybody called her Cinderella because she wore work clothes and often volunteered to clean up the workshop) was walking around with Belle, primped up like princesses. The two seniors were by now very learned in the art of destroying Heartless. Both were known by how Heartless were not drawn to them at all. There were five students in school like that: Belle, Ella, Aurora, Jasmine and Shirayuki. They were called the Princesses of Heart for the way they dressed and this peculiar talent of theirs.

All of them were going to be moving up to a college in town soon. Belle took World Literature, Ella and Aurora were partnered in Music as the best singers of the school, Jasmine was taking Ninja 101 - she had this wild streak expressed by the tiger decals on her bag and clothing - and Shirayuki wanted to be a conservation officer. She somehow always got the animals to dance around with her.

Next were Tiida Ohori and Wakka Inakura. If anything, they were worse than Xeno and Sarah. They were on the school sports team, and very active on it. Rumour was that Wakka had already gotten a girl pregnant, and the subject was a sixteen-year-old called Lulu. She'd called in sick several times until the school understood that she actually was sick and let her take off as much time as she needed. Wakka then took her homework to her house, and Tiida told a lot of people that they had too much alone time for it to be just a high school romance. Then again, Tiida himself was trying quite desperately to court Yuna Ileska, the brunette girl from Alex's class.

He passed a few more refugees. Mulan was seventeen and a talented swordswoman. She'd apparently joined the imperial army to try and bring honour to her family, but the world had been destroyed before she had managed anything notable. She was currently practising her playing of the guitar, something nobody had really expected her to be able to play because of her Asian background. But many people were shocking others with hidden talents recently.

Icarus was another lost cause. He originated from a world that had many of its bases seemingly in ancient Greek myth. As a freshman at the Athenian Academy, he'd flown too close to the sun and his wax wings had melted, causing him to fall into the ocean. The heat turned him crazy and the fall turned him mellow. When his home had been destroyed he'd probably realised he could never fly that high on wings like that again, but it never stopped him from trying again. He was pretty good with woodwork and sculpture. His man problem was that one of his eyes was unfocused, so he couldn't see too well and the only friends he had were the resident strong guy Hercules and the teenage seer Cassandra.

Alex passed Kronk. No real comments. Kronk was more or less self-dependant. He was a janitor for the school. You could often hear his bad singing of his own theme music echo around during class.

Then he saw some of the members of his class. It was Telary, the aforementioned 'Ronald McDonald' clone. He wasn't actually a Ronald McDonald clone, but he had some of the brightest red hair that Alex had ever seen. He also liked to dress up in multiple styles of clothing to look like he belonged to different social groups. The boy today was going for the punk look mated with the wizard look and donned a blue choker with a star-moon symbol. Alex had only learned a few weeks ago that Telary was a sorcerer's apprentice and, by the looks of things, not his first either. The other had become a King somewhere in the worlds; Alex hadn't bothered to check where and didn't want to find out and completely ignore Joumae's opinions of him. He must have known the guy...

Glenn leaned on the wall by his fighting class, bright green hair spiking up ridiculously. Alex would have to go to that classroom himself today. You'd swear from the noises he was making that he had fifteen consecutive and simultaneous stomach complaints. The warrior boy gave him a strange look, and shrugged. It wasn't normally that he ever got to go around the school and meet people. He was just waiting for somebody from his world to come, Cyrus. But he was also rather sure that Cyrus hadn't made it out. At least he'd managed to come here while Guardia fell. Judging by how quickly it had happened, he should have been the only one to survive the Heartless attack.

Next to him, the wolf girl Haku Hayashi was seated on the ground with a brunet boy. Haku was the animal fusion in Alex's class. She had long silver hair with a thick gold streak down the middle. People said that she had been taken in by a scientist called Hojo and that the wolf tail, ears and fur was all due to some kind of gene-splicing experiment. There may have been truth in those words: she was shockingly aware of what she looked like, and every few seconds she would begin reciting the known periodic table. She was on tungsten right now. How she had memorised it all, the school had yet to discover.

The brunet boy had spiky brown hair long enough to tie into a high ponytail. His eyes were bright and filled with imaginary sparks. Alex had discovered his name to be Jonathan Mireu, but everybody called him Pyro. And they all knew why, too - he liked to burn things. He had a special skill of pyrokinesis and often set both his written and his spoken work on fire, by igniting the air. They (the students) had apparently discovered this last year when his teacher Mr Leonhart had bothered to smell the air and realised something was dreadfully wrong. They didn't get the ashes of the papers and the desks out of the corridors for weeks; the smell still hung around. People were wearing clothes pegs and Mr Leonhart was wearing a full fireproof suit.

And then there was the denim-haired boy that looked like Alex-

-wait... what? Alex whipped around and the boy, a year older than him, turned and ran. The Lockshield wielder caught a glance of an eye patch covering the left side of his face.

Alex pulled a hand mirror from his pocket and began to chase the boy. Something weird was going on; maybe Joumae could tell him what a doppelgänger was doing running around the school today. Maybe it was some kind of test for his schooling. "Yo, Joumae!" he said hurriedly, and turned the mirror forward. The spirit immediately took over the reflection and held onto the frame as Alex turned him around to see the mystery student. "Do you know anything about clones?"

_Quite a bit, being one myself_, Joumae said, then added cheekily, _butter-brains_.

"Hey! Whose side are you on!?" Alex yelled. "You know, I could just throw this thing at people's heads." He was still running. The student turned down the headmaster's corridor, which was strangely empty. Alex knew why.

There was no running in this corridor.

The unknown dropped something on the floor. Alex slowed, and was about to pick it up when another something - or someone - swooped down and took it for themselves. He rubbed his eyes as he saw it. It was a brunet girl floating around in the air and swinging the pendant around her finger. She wore a black dress with long, thigh-length buckled boots that looked like legwarmers and arm coverings that seemed to serve the same purpose. She had cycling shorts on underneath, something Alex preferred not to look at as that would be looking up her skirt. Alex only wanted to be that perverted with his wife.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked.

"Me? I'm _stealin'_!" she said, and dropped to the floor, beginning to take a running route herself. Funny that it was a route to the art block. Alex could corner her off there.

KHKHKH

"It's not the same," Sora suddenly said.

Akiyama looked up, frowning. "What's not the same?" he asked, moving to sit in Alex's seat. Sora was looking more depressed than normal, and he was usually a very depressed person. "You can tell me, come on."

"Our necklace disappeared last night," Sora said, grasping at his throat again. "And, being here, without it... makes us feel like we're divided into two."

The silver-haired boy blinked. "Divided in two... Sora, you almost always say that," he said, suddenly breaking into a smile. "You always act like there are two of you. Don't believe that there is anymore. There's _only_ you. Besides, your necklace..." He looked around. "Look out for it. You'll eventually find it if you just retrace your footsteps and keep your eyes open, instead of half-closed like they normally are. Nobody knows what that necklace means. Nobody's gonna steal it!"

Sora sighed, then nodded, a small smile coming onto his face. Akiyama grinned too, then moved back into his seat to copy the date down into his book. As soon as his attention was on something else, Sora cast his head down. Something just felt completely wrong today. It was as if that necklace had made him whole.

"We guess sometimes Riku can't help us out," he realised. As soon as the words had left his lips, his small smile evolved into a broad grin. "Which means we can finally shine a little brighter."

KHKHKH

Alex rushed around the corners until finally turning into his expected destination, in front of the largest art classroom. The walls here were covered in different murals showing various scenes that the better artists of the school had created. One of them showed Aurora asleep on a bed with her prince leaning over her. That had happened last year, when the curse that sent her to sleep had been activated by an evil witch. It was no wonder that they called her Sleeping Beauty; her golden hair and blood red lips were the vision of perfection.

The girl was standing there in front of the door to the main stock-cupboards, clothed just as impossibly as she had flown. Now that he was looking, her dress had a pair of trailing tails. She was throwing the necklace up and down repeatedly. She had her eyes carefully trained on the silver gleam, as if she were hypnotised. The boy almost believed that she had the same curse as him.

"Hey!" he cried, holding out his hand. "You with the pendant?"

She looked back at him. "Turn your Mona Lisa frown upside-down!" she said happily.


	12. Chapter 12

Alex raised an eyebrow at the girl's upbeat nature and looked her over once more. She wasn't a student; the outfit she wore was nothing like the school uniform. The skirt was short (and at this point he felt he needed Joumae to be real so that he could cover his eyes up) and shorter than the official school dress. It was also coloured entirely differently. Hers had a pair of bright white stripes down the front of the dress, while the school uniform's dress was grey with green lining. He really had to speak to the designer, who simply didn't get that green blurred with cold grey. The boots and cycling shorts wouldn't be allowed within the building either, and he caught sight of three earrings on her left ear.

"Excuse me?" he squeaked. Yeah, now was the perfect time for his voice to crack.

The girl laughed. "I said, turn your Mona Lisa frown upside-down," she repeated clearly. "You see, because Mona Lisa's supposed to smile, but she doesn't because she's thinking about how she's putting on weight and all..." She shook her head. "Never mind. You're... Alex, right?"

He jumped. "Yes!" he cried. "Um, err... how the heck did you know my name?"

"Well, I've been listening to what those guys say about you," she said, beginning to pace. She was swinging her hips out as she did, a sure-fire sign that she was obviously more knowledgeable than he was. "Something about you being able to end everything with the Heartless and the Nobodies and the worlds falling to darkness." He blinked. Nobodies... what were they? "I don't know who they were, but that's what they were saying. Can you believe I had to sneak in - in _costume_!? I'm too good for that!"

Alex tried to butt in, but she continued talking.

"And please, of all the costumes I could wear, I have to be disguised as a _palm tree_! The guy's completely insane and I have to copy him! There's _everything_ wrong with that!"

"Palm tree?" Alex muttered.

"And now - hang on." She stopped, walked over and bowed. "My name's Umi. I'm the Umi no Shirube." She gave him a 'peace' symbol. "And you, you're Alex Karsath, the Lockshielder, right?"  
He blinked. Who had told her? "Yes..."

She squealed, clapping her hands together. "So you are the guy they were talking about!" she said, wiping her forehead. "Oh, and I thought I'd just spoken to the wrong person, too. When they said Karsath, I kept thinking of silver hair. But I guess genetics don't always follow through, do they?" She sighed, and grabbed his face by the chin, causing him to blush heavily. "Because Sephiros was definitely not this handsome! Never in a million years!"

Alex slapped her hand away. "He still gets girls," he grumbled, crossing his arms, then suddenly shook his head. He was a total idiot! "How do you know who my grandfather is? And who are these people you were talking about, anyway?" She knew way too much and he knew way too little. What was it about the cliché of the villains knowing so much and the hero knowing so little that people found so attractive? It wasn't funny to the one who was trying to save everybody, that was for sure. If you asked Alex any question about the Heartless, he wouldn't be able to answer a lot. He knew what they were, but didn't understand them. If you asked any villain about how to make a magical laser gun that destroyed whatever it hit, you would be able to get an entire lecture about it.

"Oh, no idea," she confessed, "but I watched that one, who looked like you. I watched him steal that necklace from an adorable little caramel boy last night and then knock him out! I don't get it! Why would somebody want to do that to a little guy like him, anyway? He wasn't hurting anybody..."

Alex blinked. Caramel... it suddenly came to him in a flash. Sora was the only person he knew who fit that description of being caramel. His skin was caramel and his hair was caramel. He was surprised that his blood wasn't caramel, to be fully honest. Or was it? He'd never seen him bleed before. "Wait, he stole it off Sora?" he asked. "Why on earth would he want to do that?"

"Exactly what I just said!" Umi no Shirube cried, and Alex furrowed his brow. He couldn't speak girl. "I mean, Sor-Sor was just walking around, talking to himself in the window. I admit he looked a little crazy, but I don't think it was actually bad enough to make anybody want to hurt him. He looked so sweet, too."  
Following a long and very fan-girlish sigh from the strange girl with the equally strange style of dress, Alex shook his head again. There was something really fishy going on here, he could smell it in the air - and he didn't mean the lunch available from the cafeteria this morning. He was part of a conspiracy; that had to be it. Either that or... dear God, he really was an alien! And so were the rest of them!

KHKHKH

Mr Damashii walked into the classroom which, by now, was teeming with adolescent life. His eyes immediately focused on Alexander's empty chair and, confused, he sat on the front of his desk. The bell had not yet gone, so the boy technically wasn't late, but he was later. Normally he got into the homeroom early and just sat there talking to Sora, or Okan, Derest and Grace. He was easily settling in. The only person he seemed to have real problems with was Gregory, and that was only because they simply didn't talk to each other. Gregory just watched and Alex tried to dodge the glares.

He guessed he had to ask someone. So, a little hesitantly, he poked Sora. The caramel-haired boy looked up. "Excuse me, Mr Nomura?" he asked. "Would you, by any chance, know what happened to Mr Karsath?"

"Huh?" The student looked around hurriedly. "No, we don't," he said finally, sighing. "We think he came in with those guys-" he gestured backwards, "-but he didn't enter the classroom with them at all. He would have talked to us if he had come in."

Mr Damashii frowned. "I hope he's okay. He wouldn't want to miss what I have planned for today." He held himself up more proudly at this part, and Sora gave him a confused look. "He'd get to see the true might of a fully-grown Heartless."

Sora grimaced. "With all honesty we would rather call Heartless horrible than mighty," he muttered.

Mr Damashii shrugged, then pushed himself off the desk and motioned to the class. "Hey, guys! We all know what I planned for today, right?" He re-opened the door. "Come on down to the gym, kids. Time for your real inauguration into the school."

KHKHKH

"Well..." he began, reasserting the fact that he was holding his hand out. "Can you please give it to me? I'll make sure Sora gets it back."

"Hmm..." She placed a finger to her lips. "Umm... no!" She smiled, throwing it around again. "Why would anyone want to give up a masterpiece like this? You can hold it in your hand and within seconds you can sense its long and wonderful history! This kind of work, the detail, the master craftsmanship - the straight cut, the design and the oh, so beautiful engraving - it all adds up to one thing." She held it up to the light, letting it gleam bright white. "This necklace is art on a chain! I couldn't possibly let go of it!"

Alex once again raised an eyebrow. This time it was the opposite one, so now his face looked surprised. "Well then, why would Sora want to lose it, then?" he asked, the corner of his mouth turning up in a cheeky grin. Umi no Shirube blinked, then hummed as she considered. Alex rolled his eyes. There was no way that she could say anything other than that he wouldn't. If the object was truly so valuable, then Sora would deserve it back. He did have it originally, anyway. It made more sense for him to have it back and preserve the true essence of the necklace, rather then deprive its owner of its presence forever.

It was then that Alex mentally slapped himself for being poetic.

Finally, Umi no Shirube came to her conclusion. "Of course, silly me," she said, placing her hand up to her forehead. "I should have stopped that mean patch boy from sneaking into Sor-Sor's room and sneaking his necklace right off his pretty little neck!"

Alex zoned out. "Wait. You just said Sora had a 'pretty little neck'."

"What, never seen it before or something?" Umi no Shirube said. "Well, maybe not, but that's the uniform's fault. Stupid high collar; you never get to appreciate that delicate area."

"Since when did girls say that guys had pretty necks?" Alex asked himself. A reflection on the glass of the door behind Umiyuri was thrown into sharp relief by the sunlight and Joumae formed from the shadows, seemingly in the room beyond.

_Well, I bet some girls find some aspects of boys feminine and some boys find some aspects of girls masculine_, he commented. _Like your opinion of the women's basketball team._

"Oh, shut it, you," Alex said offhandedly, and it was Umi no Shirube's turn to wear the confusion like a crown.

"But I said nothing!" she cried.

Alex rubbed his forehead; the headache from the stress was still very much present. "I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to... someone else."

_Oh, I'm someone else now?_ Joumae pouted, crossing his arms and pretending to sulk. _That's funny... I felt like we were one and the same, chugalug._

"No, really, shut it! I'm sick of listening to you! Sometimes I wish you weren't here!"

She frowned for a few seconds, then clapped. Clearly she was unable to snap her fingers. "You did exactly what Sor-Sor did!" she pointed out. "You did! You talked to yourself! He was doing the exact same thing, throwing 'you's and 'me's around, but always referring to himself in the end!" She then threw the pendant back. Alex caught it and looked it over. It was the same crown that topped the Lockshield. "You impressed me. You deserve it!"

The bell began to ring and he looked down at his watch. He panicked. It was time for his practical! Alex wheeled around and ran down the halls, using as much speed as he could muster. How on earth could he lose track of time like that? "Darn it, late! I'm actually late!" he growled. "I can't be late!"

Umi no Shirube hurried along beside him. "Well, how am I supposed to know you were late? It's not like I keep a pocket-watch!" she argued back, speeding up. "Besides, I only came to this school this morning to chase after that boy who looked like you!"

"That's getting to be a very delicate subject," Alex noted. "It's not right for there to be _three_ of me."

Joumae himself was skipping past in the reflections on the doors, still wearing the expression of defeat. _And now I'm you again!_ he whined. _When will the identity crisis end?_

Umi no Shirube powered on forward, wearing her thinking cap again. It seemed to take a very long time for her to do anything, Alex thought, but then again, it was all to do with her age. The 'Umi no Shirube' was a statue capping the unknown building on the outskirts of town. It also happened to be a century old. Personally, Alex wouldn't be too surprised if her thinking took a very short time to her; she was already about eighty-something years older than him.

Suddenly, he felt himself pushed off his feet. He looked up to see the magical girl carrying him about. "Hey! I can definitely fly faster than you walk, that should be enough!"

KHKHKH

Sora looked around as the class reached the sports hall. It had been re-kitted by the looks of things. The walls were white and decorated with a blue heart symbol which everybody soon took to be the representation of the Holy Heart itself. Frosted glass walls currently separated different sections of the hall. The lights hung crazily from the ceiling, wires everywhere, and the scoreboard was switched off. The floor was made of transparent tiles on a special mechanism, revealing the pool underneath them. This had hoops inside for the blitzball tournament which would be held later that year, and the pool would rise so that the game could be watched properly from the ivory stands.

A blonde girl dropped down from the ceiling, juggling some electrical equipment. She had piercing green eyes and a slim figure clad in messy brown dungarees. "Hey, Ms Ito!" Mr Damashii waved. The antenna-headed woman waved back, before picking up her red toolbox, and walked over. "How's the revamp coming?" the teacher asked.

Ms Ito smiled. "Excellently!" she said, smiling. "Your automated systems are up and running at full power now!"

"That's good," Mr Damashii smiled, then lowered his voice. The two exchanged some whispered words. Sora blinked. The two looked really serious. There was something going on that he didn't know about.

The woman nodded at something, then walked off. Mr Damashii turned to his class. "Alright, guys," he began. "Your real schooling starts in this special arena here. Here is where we train you guys to defeat Heartless. Yep, that's right, this is where the magic starts." He walked over to a keypad on the wall to his right and struck a few buttons. A tiny hatch opened up. "You guys are going to be learning to fight here for the whole semester. Elsewhere, you'd be put at complete risk. Remember, we want to you guys to survive. Hence why you even came to this world at all."

A few of the students looked at each other, clearly anxious. Butterflies were beginning to unfurl their wings in Sora's stomach. How was he going to do this at all? He couldn't spoil his secret...

"You are going to select from one of three weapons we had given you," Mr Damashii said. "Which one you pick will affect the way you learn things at the school. Whatever you pick now is going to stick with you and you are going to stick with it, right? Got it so far?" All of them raised their hands. "Sweet, now to go on to-"

At that second, the doors were forced open and Alex and Umi no Shirube hurtled through, the girl breaking as hard as she could by scraping her rubber heels against the floor tiles. The others scattered to the side as the pair nearly bulldozed poor Mr Damashii over, finally skidding to a rough halt.

Umi no Shirube lowered Alex lightly onto the floor and he fell forward, hand on his forehead. Suddenly he didn't feel so good... he looked up and around at the gym, realised where he was, and collapsed on his knees, still trying to grasp his bearings before it was too late. The necklace fell out of his hands and bounced across the floor until it reached Sora. The spiky-haired fourteen-year-old knelt down and picked up the pendant carefully. His hand was shaking a little as he looked down at the boy kneeling on the floor.

"Alex?" he asked gingerly. "Are you going to be alright?"

Dizzied from the sudden stop, Alex pushed himself back onto his feet. The YuRiPa moved forward slightly, then back as he swayed, panting. Gasping, he looked up at Sora and smiled a very weak little grin. "Yeah, I'm gonna be fine," he said. "You don't have to worry about me. I just have to worry about whether I'm gonna be able to eat safely for the next week or so, but other than that..." He shrugged. "I'll live."

Sora chuckled a little and bowed his head, eyes closed. "Thanks for returning our pendant," he mumbled.

There it was. He had referred to himself as more than one person. Something was up, he knew it. "No problems," Alex said, scratching the back of his head. "At least, none thanks to Umi."

Said Umi - no Shirube, of course - dropped down, with her hands clasped together and lost in a dreamy state. "Aww, you two are just _so_ adorable!" she cooed, making Sora turn bright red and Alex just deadpan.

Somebody clapped, and everybody looked over at Mr Damashii. "Well, that was one hell of an entrance, my good kid!" he said. "I can see that Mr Karsath is still our top comedian!" Alex frowned. "Of course, he also didn't turn up for homeroom, so I guess that's a stain on his so far perfect record."

Alex cocked his head. "Grandpa was waiting to kill me anyway," he said. "This just gives him an excuse."

Akiyama, however, was not so pleased. "This used to be your best friend, Sora?" he asked, amazed.

"Well, Riku, people can surprise you," Sora replied. "You just have to give them the right forum in which to do so. Remember, my friends don't have to be perfect in everything. You just are."

"Blame my dad," Akiyama said. "His fault completely. Perfection was top of his list."

"And you're also," their blue-haired and blue-eyed teacher began, pausing only to check the class list on his clipboard, "according to this, first on the chart for this practical exercise."

Alex blanked out again. "What?"

"Yeah, it was something Headmaster Yamamoto decided," Mr Damashii explained. "According to him, you would be the most interesting person to put through this little practice thing. Apparently, you've had some spats with Heartless before, am I right?"

"Well, only twice, but-"

"So you're technically the most experienced kid in this whole class, in this whole year even, at kicking Heartless patookie?" the elder continued, and some of the teenagers began to confer. If Alex really had been in a fight with Heartless before, he'd definitely be the one to watch in this lesson. Hey, he'd done this before. It only made sense that he'd know the most about what to do. Even the alien koala, with all four of his plasma shots tucked into their individual holsters, began to nod to himself.

The boy only crossed his arms. "Come on, can't we just go in alphabetical order?" he said.

"Well, Alex _does_ begin with an 'A'-"

"I meant alphabetical by surname!"

Mr Damashii grumbled. "Alright then, why don't I just do it? Being a teacher and all, I bet I could tell you a few things you never knew about how to get rid of a full country's infestation of Hook Bats before the hour is up." Suddenly, a mad look overtook the middle-aged man's face. "Better yet, if you don't think you can do it, let's see how Selphie tries." The brunette girl jumped and hid behind Kaze Nojima, while the curly-haired boy just gave her a weird look in response.

"Are you kidding? She couldn't even fight her way out of her blanket in the morning!" Alex said, storming over and swiping the Dream Shield.

His teacher smirked. "Oh, you think you could do better, then?"

"I _know_ I can do better!" Without thinking, Alex keyed the release password 'CHASER' into the pad and walked into the booth. A happy and satisfied expression crossed Mr Damashii's face as he hit the red button and the hatch closed, then cleared a small window in the Plexiglas. It only took a few seconds for Alex to realise what had just happened. "Oh... _Kriss Kringle_." Thinking all too quickly, he replaced the Dream Shield with the Lockshield and braced himself. A series of timed beeps signalled the start of the session. He closed his eyes, breathed in, and opened them again to watch the monsters appear.

As Alex fought off the dozen or so Soldiers that had been captured especially for the class, Sora Nomura looked on with a rather forlorn but generally happy expression. He didn't like too many people becoming close to him ever since the incident and Riku had been the only person he'd really liked being his friend recently, but Alex was a very happy exclusion to the rule. He had been one of the first people to be nice to him and the very first good deed he had ever done him was roughly a good ten years ago, when he had found and given back a certain silver crown necklace.

**

* * *

Author's Note:** Umi no Shirube _is_ named after the Towa No Shirube in _DNAngel_, to clarify. That's it for this chapter. 


	13. Chapter 13

**Umi's Note:This is a guest chapter! Yay! Guest meaning... Gregory-kun! YAY!**

**Hb:Yay?

* * *

**

Gregory stretched himself out on the sofa of his old house. It had been just a few weeks ago that his class had taken those practical lessons. A lot of them had been very interesting, with a few selecting their own weapons due to their special talents: Riku Akiyama's sword was strengthened by the darkness, making the fact that it destroyed it all the more ironic; Kynthia Usagi's scythe could create a full moon and bleach the Heartless out; Telary Cri's dual swords were enchanted and only damaged those he considered evil. Yuna Ileska of the by now famous YuRiPa danced her way to success - the size was all because she was trying not to get people hurt. In reality she was five foot six and hugely powerful, using tribal dances to create shockwaves.

And others had stuck to the supplied weapons. Stitch Pelekai, the small multiple-limbed koala, had selected the Dream Staff, not to anybody's real surprise, but he shot every last Heartless with some kind of white energy spell that even Mr Damashii could not identify. Unable to choose, Pence Greystone, the black-haired boy with the neckerchief, had gone with his instincts and picked up a Dream Sword, slicing all of the Heartless up within seconds. Haku Hayashi's usage of a Dream Shield had been extraordinary; using it as a base for a tornado attack was the inspiration everybody needed.

The two people he had kept his eyes on the most were Alexander Karsath and Sora Nomura. To be completely honest, he'd only really paid any of his attention to them that day because they already intrigued him. Their cases were unique.

Alexander had been tricked into the practical by a very sly teacher. Upon realising his mistake he had immediately picked up the Lockshield and burst into a medley of well-designed attacks only a master would know. The rest had watched him carefully. He was one of the few students whose home was Earth, and he hadn't even wanted to step into the booth in the first place. But there he had been, finishing off each of the rounds like an expert. It was strange that the only person who had not been through what the others had was the only one with enough experience to fight that problem.

Sora, whose secret he would be unable to keep to himself for much longer, had virtually stumbled through the exercise. His Dream Sword skills hadn't been successful enough so Mr Damashii, being incredibly kind, had allowed him to step out and get another weapon, one he was more used to. The boy had come back with a foam bat like a Sock 'Em Bopper in one hand, and a pine wooden sword in the other. Everybody had laughed for a while, but as soon as he had entered the arena, he'd become somebody completely different.

Gregory had decided to make his part interesting. He was what was known as a Cruxis Angel. He'd worked hard to become one - he was only fifteen years old and already strengthened by a Cruxis crystal implanted into his right arm. His abilities were past the others. Basically, he'd decided to put on a show. Using the powers he had as a Cruxis Angel, he'd taken those Heartless on a little trip that they would never forget until their dying days - which, funnily enough, happened within the same second. Unfortunately, he still was slightly unstable. The seating of the stadium would need to be fixed at some point.

The kids had then been separated after this small examination. They still all met up in the homeroom, but each day there was a one-hour period where they all went to different classes. And Gregory, Sora and Alexander had all ended up as the only students from their year that had gained a place in the special classroom by the gymnasium. It had been an entertaining experience.

"Boys, this is your teacher for your new fighting class," Mr Damashii had said. "His name is Mr Ishioka. Hope you have fun!" And with that, he had dashed out of the room, leaving the three boys confused.

"Nice to meet you." The man that had stood before them must have only just come out of school himself. He was just a little taller than Gregory, with hair of a silky colour between blue and silver that fell over one side of his face. He had a pair of piercing chocolate eyes that held gates within, but none of them found anything behind them. "Like Damashii said, I'm Ishioka."

He had held out a hand to shake. Reluctantly, Sora had took it; Mr Ishioka had smiled, Alex had shuddered and Gregory had frowned. It had almost been like the two knew each other. Maybe Mr Ishioka had been a family friend. Gregory didn't know then and still didn't know now.

"I will be your teacher for this period every day for the next school year. By the time you have finished this class, I expect you boys to be able to cut down twenty Behemoths in half an hour-" he had snapped his fingers; the lights had dimmed and Gregory had watched the Lockshield Wielder grow unusually still, "-solo, deaf and blind. That is how the school reckons you will be able to battle after you go through my training."

Naturally, Alexander had seemed sceptical, and immediately questioned the teacher's authority to say such things. Gregory had not been surprised. From what he had seen of Alex recently, it had looked like he was incredibly weary of anybody he met. The kid needed a little more confidence in himself. But Gregory was okay, and he knew what the problem was. With such a hectic lifestyle as a Lockshield Wielder, you had to be careful with _everybody_ that you met. It was the only way to move up in the modern world. "Mr Ishioka, how exactly do you expect three teenage kids to be able to do that?" he had asked. "Come on, I didn't even know the Heartless existed until last month."

"Your grandfather Sephiros told me that you have been sword-fighting since you were a small child." Mr Ishioka had slammed shut the book that he had been holding. "Therefore, I need you to be the exact level that he told me you had been training to be most of your life."

"But-" And then that thick tome had hit him.

_That_ had been a moment for the yearbooks.

At that moment, Isaac sat down next to his elder brother, snapping him out of his flashback. "Hello, Gregory," he said, crossing his arms and trying to look regal. To tell the truth, Gregory wished he could laugh. The Zivaku family had an odd history of producing such fantastic morons.

Of course, Gregory never used that description in front of his dear younger brother. "Why, hello, Isaac!" he said, putting on his strangest, most fake grin. "And how's the world's newest super-villain doing at his job, hmm?" For a second, he took on a more serious face. "So, did you catch Batman yet, Joker?"

"Can it," Isaac said, and lay back, completely exhausted. "I really thought I could get her today, too..."

Now Gregory was all ears. He'd never heard his kid brother talk about a girl like that. The only girl Isaac knew was on his side and in the house. He sat up, and Isaac stared at him awkwardly. Gregory grimaced, then gestured with his hand for his little brother to continue. Isaac shook his head. Gregory grumbled slightly, then reached over to try and stretch the mouth into talking. Isaac batted him away. Gregory stared down at his hand with puppy-dog eyes, then reached up and pretended to sob. Isaac rolled his eyes in embarrassment.

"You wanna stop now?" the boy groaned.

Gregory shook his head. "Tell me and I'll stop," he replied, that crazy smile back on his face.

Isaac shuffled back into a comfortable position on the black leather, clutching the scarlet cushion with one hand. "Okay, you see, there's this girl I've been trying to get a hold of for a while now," the one-eyed child said, then hung his head. "She never answers her phone, doesn't have a computer. I went up to her house and she's never in there once."

The partially blue-haired boy smiled cheekily. "Aww, does my ickle bwother Issy-Isaac need some help getting a girlfwiend?" he teased, ruffling the boy's hair.

"No!" Isaac ducked, turning red. "It's not like that at all! Really - uh-" Unfortunately for him, he'd just been caught in a noogie. He growled. "Ow! Get off me!" A vein began to pulse in his forehead. "Alright, that's it!" He grabbed the grey lamp on the coffee table and began viciously batting at his sibling's head. At, least, he would be if he could reach properly. Gregory, foreseeing such retaliation, had planned ahead. It was rare that he did that.  
Finally, he forced him off, and jumped out of his seat. "You said!" Isaac shouted, wagging his finger. "You said!"

The poor older sibling shrugged. "Alrighty, then, I'll stop." He became stern-looking again.

Isaac sighed, rubbing his head. Today was not his day to be an evil genius mastermind, huh? "Look, it's that... I'm looking over the painting that she did two years ago. She called it 'Stepping Into Wonderland'."

The image of a pale, quiet angel flashed through Gregory's mind. "Oh, so it's that cute little Ms Tanaka you're talking about," he said, now in the know. At least he knew who the girl was. "I'm guessing it would be pointless to ask how she's doing, then."

"Actually, it's not," said the now standing brother. "I may not have gotten her to pick up the phone whenever I ring, but she did respond once to my answering machine message."

"Oh. When did she do this?"

Isaac put his hands in his pockets, directing his eyes down to the floor. "Two weeks ago." The answer came out low.

"I knew it." Gregory raised his hands in defeat. "Why are you so hung up about Ms Tanaka, anyway? And this painting - why is it so important to you? Why is some pigment on torn canvas really so crucial to what you're planning?"

"Because there's somebody stuck i_nside_ it!" Isaac yelled back, and walked off. "You don't want me finding you more Princesses of Heart, then I don't want you snooping into my business!" The door flew shut with a bang, leaving Gregory alone in the living room.

The teenager fidgeted for a while in his seat, then propped his head up on his hand. Maybe he was being too nosy. After all, his brother did want peace to try and fulfil his twisted, malevolent schemes. But it was second nature to the boy. He was famous for knowing everything and he just wanted to live up to his fantastic legacy. Sora would always have questions for him and he'd always try to deliver, as best he could.

Besides, what was this about a Princess of Heart? He'd actually found a new one!? Maybe, maybe not, but the Princesses of Heart were more than just a school clique. They were a legend dangerously entwined with the Holy Heart. The seven maidens of purest heart who, when brought together with the Keyblade, were supposedly able to open the hearts of the worlds, letting the darkness devour it. And then, with their light, they'd pull together the remnants and create a whole new world. In other words, they restored a world by purging it and gluing it back together. Those girls at school probably didn't know it, but they were five of them. There were apparently two more to be found, just that they suspected one had been killed in an accident. And the other...

...was trapped in a painting made by a girl only just going through puberty.

Oh, they sure needed Joumae for this one. He'd know how to get her out.

KHKHKH

Up in his bedroom, Isaac began to sulk. He may have been evil, but he was still a kid and he hadn't needed his brother's opinions like that. Of course the painting was important! A heart was trapped inside it and without taking that heart out they could never complete the oldest path to destruction in the book.

And Isaac would definitely want to set off the end of the world if it meant his brother would suffer along with it. He didn't know why they were so affectionate with each other, or even how he could be. He hated the damn boy. He hated everything about him. Each time he met his glance he had the sudden urge to whip out his sword and _snickersnack!_ he would be history.

The girl came in. She had been the one to attempt to steal the Umi no Shirube. Isaac knew why: the other group had sent her. They'd said it would just be a routine job - steal the bird statue and get back without injuries. If she fell, it would just be a little bump on the noggin; she would be able to walk away without serious problem. Just be a little bump. 'Damn near' killed her, according to her story. She been pushed over the edge of the roof by the manic masterpiece and then been saved, just fainting to miss being caught. That routine job to steal the bird statue had ended up in failure. She was probably still hitting herself for it. "Isaac, you okay?"

Isaac looked up at her. "Hey, Ms Hashimoto," he said.

Hashimoto smiled. "You'll never call me by my first name, huh?" she said, eyes twinkling.

"What can I say?" Isaac picked up a jacket off the floor. "First name basis would mean we know each other on informal terms, and that's not the best thing in the world if one of us dies."

The girl sat down next to him on the soft duvet. His room was white, she noticed. He was like a stain in the perfect light. "Well, that's true," she said. "But how come you let me use your first name? If we're not supposed to get close, don't you think that's pushing it a little?"

"The Karsath boy," Isaac said, suddenly deciding to switch subjects. Anyway, the strange boy with the mysterious weapon would need to be on the top of their priority list. Only without him could they press on. "We'll need to do a number on him. He took in Shadowflash recently, so those two can be taken out at the same time."

Hashimoto sighed, brushing some hair out of her amethyst eyes. "Can you stop thinking of Shadowflash for more than a day? Why do you hate him so?" She locked gazes with him. "You want an enemy? Try the Faction."

"They are my enemy!" he shouted. "And so's Shadowflash! Just when it comes to picking one of them to be a greater enemy, the one who was so stupid as to try and think he owned the girl that came to me _kinda_ floats to the top! Happy now?"

The redhead shook her head. "Oh, brother," she moaned, and looked back at him incredulously. "Is that it?" she said. "Oh, my God. I was thinking something a little less... cliché from the apparent most original bad guy in the galaxy. He wants to open Kingdom Hearts. _Maleficent_, anybody?"

"Small-fry." He waved her off. "Hey, I'm still a little... _tense_ since their world caved in like that. Nobody knows who caused it."

Still unphased, Hashimoto stood up. "He's a member of the Faction, the one who destroyed Victory's world," she said. "I know she respected me for who I was, and I think she was probably the first to do so. The boy who did it looks like Shadowflash, too, but I wouldn't pin them down to being the same person." She reached the door, then turned around. "Why do you still have me around?" she asked.

Isaac shook his head, a meek smile on his face. "You look a little like her," he said. "And you're almost as stubborn as she was."

She beamed, before walking out into the hall.

KHKHKH

Gregory sighed. Martel, he needed a break. It wasn't every single day that he had enough of a row with his brother to result in a retreat from the younger party without there being any physical damage involved. Well, unless you counted the noogie, and the strangling, and the innovative use of a brand new lamp. Despite it being an imported lamp, he gave it a thumbs-up. It had hurt.

He walked up to the door just as Hashimoto was coming out. He gave her the look and she gave a small smile. She was strange like that. Break her leg and she wouldn't so much as make a sound. It was haunting how much like a princess she acted sometimes.

"I mean, how's he really doing?" he asked her.

Still, her face was stuck in that peaceful expression. "I got him thinking about her and he seems a bit happier."

Gregory stopped in his tracks. "Her?" he wheezed. He _did_ have a girlfriend!?

"Victory, a girl he met a year ago," she said. "I met her once. She was very determined to succeed. Now that her world's gone, he'll never be the same. He'll just keep clinging to a memory, I guess." She adjusted the satchel on her hip, leaving. "At least it's a memory that keeps him happy."

Gregory stared after her. Now that she mentioned it, he had seen Isaac walk around the house with a dark female guest who acted just as suspiciously as Isaac did normally. He must have just pushed the image into the back of his mind, he reasoned. Maybe he just didn't need to see his older brother with a girl before he had one of his own. Now that he mentioned it to himself, he did recall seeing beauty in a girl in his class once. He certainly had to ask Kynthia out some time or other. He'd be able to get a life.

Not that a life would matter by the time that Isaac was finished off with his plot. The second that the heart of the world Earth was open, everything upon it would be lost. Half of the people would die instantly and the others would be cast off. Many to the Interspace, the realm in-between realms where people flew using Gummi Ships, looking for a second home to hide in. Only a few landed directly on another world and they had to travel through darkness itself. Hundreds of survivors from their dead worlds had been known to become Heartless just by travelling to others.

He frowned and opened the door hesitantly. Isaac looked up at him, the single eye trained on him like he was prey.

"Listen, man, I'm sorry," Gregory said. The younger brother blinked. "I know, I sounded completely heartless back there."

Isaac sniffed. "You're not the Heartless, I am. I guess that makes it funny; how can you not be heartless to a Heartless?" he rambled.

The older brother walked over to him and sat down just where Hashimoto had been mere seconds before. He put an arm around him shoulder. "You're not a Heartless," he said. "You're not a mindless slave of the dark. You can plan - first sign that you're not a Heartless is that you have control over yourself."

The black-and-red-haired boy shook his head. "No. Xehanort could, and he was the most devastating Heartless I ever met."

"That's because he was a total bastard who didn't care for darkness or light," Gregory argued, "and he dared to lay his hands on the little brother of-" he stopped melodramatically, his voice going low, "-Gregory Zivaku: Cruxis Angel." He shook his fist comically at the air, making Isaac laugh. "See? Does that make you happy?"

"Only because you look like a total blockhead doing so," Isaac pointed out. But he was happy. That was what mattered to Gregory.


	14. Chapter 14

HB: Yay, more fillers... this time the Karsaths are having family bonding...

Disclaimer: Everything copyright their respective owners.

* * *

The days weren't going by so happily for Alex as they were for the two Zivakus. He was hunched over on his bed, head in his hands. It wasn't that somebody had done something to him - he'd done something to, out of everybody in the world, Erica.  
The problem lay in the fact that he hadn't been aware that it was Erica. He hadn't been aware of much of the world that day. There he had been, happy as anything, and then suddenly he heard footsteps... It had been the footsteps' fault, he reckoned as he spat more or less sour language into his palms. The footsteps had made sure that he had been in the wrong ever since his birthday. There they had been and everything had blacked out, just like on that Friday night when Isaac became a human metronome, and Alex had...

...he'd lashed out again. He closed his eyes and proceeded to bury himself in the sheets, covering his face with a pillow. How could he have been so stupid? His mother was going to kill him for this. His grandfather was going to kill him, restore him with Phoenix Down, kill him again, restore him again, kill him again and so on. And he was so sure he was going to be sent to hell for what he had done. He was going to be strung up by demons on a rack, stretched out until his limbs ripped off and his bones dislocated, thrown into a mine trolley, carted off through toxic gases, spiders and God knows what else - sewage systems, probably. He'd be thrown off the top of a dark version of the Empire State Building and land in a fiery pit and be left to burn for all eternity.

Joumae stepped out from a door in his mind and into the small mirror Alex now bothered to keep next to his bed. He rolled over in his reflected bed, the hair and eyes dying their trademark green.

As though Alex had eyes in the back of his head, he shrank back down. "Not now, Joumae."

The verdant rolled his eyes. _Alex, come on! It isn't my fault she's out_, he groaned.

"You're right." The brunet shuffled noiselessly away from the little silver frame. "It's mine."

_What a stupid baby you are_, Joumae spat.

"Shut up or you're gonna be sporting a crack in the morning!" Alex growled, flipping over to reveal his annoyed expression and tear-stained face. Joumae was shocked. He'd _never_ seen Alex torn up like that.

Still, he wasn't going to lighten up. If this was how Alex treated his dark side for making a quick crack on his strangely overactive hormones, how the hell was he going to cope with his new fighting classes? Or the Heartless? _Just look at yourself, twit-maester! You're acting so much like a baby that you'll never solve the problem in a million years!_

Alex laughed harshly. "Yeah, right. A million years to solve the problem. It's a problem I'll only solve in hell."

Joumae moaned, then got up in the mirror world and stomped his foot several times on the fake floor. _Look, Moronicus Flynn! You're going to get out of bed, you're going to go to her room, and you're going to apologise! Is that clear?_ Startled, Alex flinched, before stiffly saluting with his left hand (he was laying on his right). Joumae tutted at the soldier's behaviour. Quickly, the boy got the message, and pushed himself up out of his bed. _Now put on a shirt, for freak's sake! Your pale skin's blinding me._

"Hey." Alex picked up the mirror. "Don't push it."

Joumae shrugged. He knew Alex was innocent. The thing was, Alex didn't. _Now march, you pregnant lady, you!_

Alex seriously considered tossing the mirror out of the window. "Look, gimme five minutes." Then he turned the mirror down, and the other left.

KHKHKH

Joumae sat alone in the strange world he called Alex's heart. For such a serious boy, his mind was an incredibly weird and wonderful place - wonderful used in the slightly negative sense of the word. For starters, it was so much a wonder that he was still sane. Something that looked like a brightly glowing green stone inscribed with an 'S' was thrown about, electricity sparking around it, then fire, then ice: Alex's magical core was overreacting with his emotions. A lightning bolt swung over to the biological clock and knocked a hand back about a few hours, and a flame shattered a small concept. Little fragments of fast-eroding mental health flew past the dark spirit almost leisurely, along with parts of the giant stain-glass portrait.

The window was an object of interest to the verdant boy. The artwork was not for show. It was supposed to show something important to the person's heart. Apparently, to look at this thing would end inner conflicts and give them a reason to live and a reason to make the best decisions. It could be anything, as long as it were something that person wanted with them all the time. It could be a friend or a love or even an enemy. For example, Erica's would show Edward Elric and Roy Mustang, stars of FullMetal Alchemist.

Joumae had soon discovered the object to have a human being displayed in it, but he didn't recognise them at all. He looked up at the sky - or, more accurately, where he reckoned the sky was - and began swearing at the holy heart. This mysterious human's details were hazy, but he still caught a gleam of something there. The object was gold and silver, and it shone like the sun.

A Keyblade. A Keyblade was part of Alex's vision. Joumae could growl. Surely Alex was happy with having the Lockshield. He was new, he was an individual. He was completely unique. A weapon like the Lockshield would have been forged especially for him.

But maybe he didn't want to be unique.

Joumae snorted. _Yeah, right, what kid doesn't want to shine on his own?_ he asked himself.

Memories of Alex's bumped into him, and he turned around to look at them. Sephiros's glare searched its way through the misty insides of the shard. Yes, now he remembered. Sephiros was so proud of his lineage and wanted Alex to be a Keyblader so that he could continue the family tradition. Possibly the teenager was suffering guilt for not being able to use the Keyblade. Joumae had forgotten all about his former partner while being with Mr Hormones.

The counterpart stretched his legs out a bit, then stood up. He had no ground to stand on. In this particular heart, you needed just sheer determination to suspend you in the water-like atmosphere. Just that, and nothing else, not even a floor. It was actually a pretty clever trick. Any human falling through it would be thinking that there was no floor to stand up on, and so they'd give up on trying to land and prop themselves up. Because of that Joumae and Alex, who knew they couldn't actually land anyway, were the only people able to land in here. It was a confusing riddle, but somebody would eventually work it out and then they'd all be doomed. In about two thousand years.

He ducked from a Blizzard spell. Yeesh, the idiot was being cold to him today... get it? Cold? Blizzard? Ice spell? Ice being cold?

Anybody laughing? No?

You're a terrible audience.

He watched a round yellow feeling fly about in the distance. He could just make out the joyful smile. If he was right, this was happiness. The reason it even resembled the Mr Men character was because that was the first thing that came to mind from the mention of the word 'happy'. It was even waving its arms about. But today happiness had shrunk in the wash. It wasn't actually in the distance at all. Joumae reached up and grabbed the thing out of mid-air. It was mouse-sized.

Mouse... now that he thought about it, the King of one of the other worlds that he had visited under Sephiros was a mouse. Maybe he'd know what was going on. People's development had changed through the years with rap music and life simulation games and imported cartoons about duelling with children's card games to the point of death or worse. The changes had taken place so rapidly that he was beginning to worry about whether he'd be out of fashion soon.

At this point, someone should have been around to remind him about the dreaded 'harem'. That was the biggest change. Now women were uprooting men on the food chain. That was not supposed to happen! Men were more important than women - they were better then women! Men did the hunting, women did the foraging. Men liked blue, women liked pink. Men were strong, women had babies. Men were ready to get their hands dirty, women carried soap. Men could make decisions, women fretted about their hair. Immediately, men sounded dominant. The natural order had to be restored. Men were the servant of God and women were the servant of men and that was how the world used to be.

And now, for reminding the world, he got slapped in the face. Well... women used to do that as well, it wasn't part of some revolution. But when a man wanted something, women gave! Any time a man demanded s-

Alex's self-censor whacked Joumae in the face. The kid had absolutely no need for a pervert in his life. _Oh, good one, buddy!_ Joumae laughed sarcastically back, but it was no use. He had to be in a mirror for Alex to hear him. It was an unwritten rule.  
And that moment was coming about...

KHKHKH

...now. _Right, muffin-man, good work with the actual getting there,_ he told his host. Alex was sitting next to Erica's bedside. The girl lay in the FullMetal Alchemist-brand duvet, her old alarm clock busted up next to her. She still had to set up the one Alex had jokingly bought her for her fourteenth birthday about a week ago. It had been a digital one with an embossed human transmutation circle that she could etch any time by taking the display out of the top and grabbing a wax crayon and some paper. For a few hours afterwards and some odd reason she'd been clapping and trying to activate it.

He'd also gotten her Vic Mignogna's album, 'Metalfiction', by hacking into her Risembol Rangers account. The girl was way too obsessed with Amestris's youngest State Alchemist to be able to distinguish between him and his voice actor, and had even 'given' Alex the account name and password a few weeks before his own birthday... she'd left them next to the computer, making it look like an accident that he could now hack the account. She'd obviously been planning to get the CD for a long time; she'd even allowed enough time to let the people send it to the house after Alex had had to order it. A little of his own money had gone towards it, and he'd had to wrap up the case in Edward Elric wrapping paper.

In other words, she owed him a hell of a lot of his own free time back.

"Cut to the quick," Alex said in a very low voice. When Aeris came back tomorrow morning he was going to be in such trouble, and Sephiros was sleeping just down the hallway in the living room. They hadn't wanted him near her at all while she was still in a pretty dark state. If he looked, he would see that there was still a slight blood flow going on there.

_Right_, Joumae began. _We've gotta wake the girl up without seriously agitating her._

Alex had to be completely blunt now. "How do we do that?"

_Easy. I'm gonna sneak in and talk to her Nobody!_

The brunet jumped in horror. "Wait, _don't_ do-" But it was too late; Joumae was gone from the mirror and he was looking at his own reflection again. "...that." Sighing, he waited patiently for the dark one to come back.

Minutes passed, almost feeling like hours, until finally Alex drifted off into sleep. He'd been feeling so worried about his little sister that he'd almost forgotten about his own sleep patterns. Besides, at this time of night the darkness became very inviting...

KHKHKH

The world was a Technicolor blur swirling around before his eyes. He could only just make out the faded edges of what seemed like bright lights, red and yellow and white. They came closer, and he realised them to be the pieces of that stain-glass window he had sat on some time ago: about a month or so before, if he remembered correctly, when he had first become Joumae.

They began to assemble. Something in the image was more visible, but he still shaded his eyes with his hand. The light was hurting them, and he could hardly keep them open in order to see.

He looked around. Everything was black, and he was resting on invisible ground. The pieces and slices of light glided silently underneath his feet, coming together like a self-solving jigsaw puzzle. Confused, he pushed himself up slowly. A few lonely doves took flight from the ground, light spilling out from underneath him. He raised an eyebrow, trying not to keep his eyes too wide open so that he could actually see where he was going, and stood on the quickly forming platform.

"You call this place a Station," said somebody, and Alex twisted around to see somebody approach him. From what he could tell, they were male with a soft voice. He was dressed in black and dark blue clothing, with bright yellow ribbons and red pockets. His shoes were yellow and black with blue straps. The strange garments looked slightly too large for the person, especially the enormous shorts. His face and hair were in shadow, but the brunet just made out the outline of some very crazy spikes and sweeps. Two bright blue eyes glinted hauntingly in the dark. "Your heart connects to the holy heart here."

The eyes let him on. "Sora?"

Whoever it was blinked. "Maybe it's my name, maybe it's not," he said, before stepping forward slowly. They looked around. It was almost as if stepping into a person's dreams was a normal occurrence for them. "Do you know about the holy heart?"

"A little," Alex replied. "But who are you, first?"

The mystery boy didn't bother to answer, instead continuing his previous point. "They say that the holy heart allows people to move between worlds, and that its destruction would mean that all worlds would become restored and disconnected." He rolled something over in his hand. "Hearts flock to it, and orbit it like a planet orbits its sun. Soon the worlds themselves revolve around the holy heart."

"You didn't answer my question," Alex said, crossing his arms.

The invader shrugged. "I don't know who I am, but who you are I _do_ know," he said calmly. It scared Alexander how quiet his voice was. "The Lockshield Wielder. A boy who tossed aside his birthright to help his best friend, who tossed aside his sanity for his family and who tossed aside his happiness for other's injuries." He crossed his arms. "You care for your sister in such a way as I would love to care for my friends. But it is not permitted. It was something not allowed us."

_Us_... that sounded familiar. The other took out a large silver and gold blade with an oddly cut end. The thing resembled a key. Keyblade?

"Sora?"

"Alex..."

"_Alex? Wake up._"

KHKHKH

The boy stirred to see Erica looking at him bleary-eyed. Joumae and the other Erica looked out from the mirror on the wall, somewhat smiling. But the younger sister was not so happy. "Are you alright, Alex?" she asked him. "You must've fallen asleep next to me."

Alex rubbed his scalp, groaning. It felt like somebody had hit him in the back of the head with a brick. "Probably," he grumbled. "Either that or that guy assaulted me with that oversized key."

Joumae narrowed his eyes, confused. _What guy was there?_ he asked, scratching his head. _And what key?_ Both siblings looked over to the mirror and the two counterparts - there was no other phrase that could possibly describe them - walked forward until it looked like there was a hole in the wall leading to an identical room next door, and that both of them were really there and looking through this makeshift window. Both the blonde and the brunet's faces went blank before they looked at each other in amazement.

"Joumae can talk through _mirrors_!?" Erica exclaimed.

"You can _hear_ him!?" Alexander replied, equally stunned. They looked at each other in total alarm before suddenly shaking themselves off. "Never mind," the boy said. "I'm just glad you're alright."

Erica smiled timidly. "It wasn't your fault, Alex," she muttered, rubbing the wound that he had given her a few hours ago. A bit of blood came out in her hands, and she sucked on her finger to remove it. "You were just out of it."

"I shouldn't have been!" Alex suddenly cried, then sunk back into the chair, head bowed and eyes hidden underneath his fringe. "I should have known. I should have been able to control myself and I failed completely. Of course it was my fault."

"If you hadn't controlled yourself... I would be dead right about now, and you'd have much more to worry about," Erica admitted. Her older brother looked up, holding back a once-stifled gasp. "Your regular attacks are much more powerful. I would have lost my heart at the least, or have had my body ripped to shreds at the most, if you hadn't been holding yourself back. But I'm alive and I'm conscious and I'm whole. You could sense me there and you knew not to attack at full strength."

Alex leaned forward and propped his head on his hands. "I still attacked my only little sister."

_Oh, put a sock in it, kiddo_, Joumae said angrily. _I'm sick and tired of you being like this._

The black-haired Erica nodded. _That's why, tomorrow, we've decided that you'll be taking a picnic with your sister _only_. Got it?_ She added a wink of her right eye for good measure. Erica looked at Alex, a crafty smile pasted across her face.

The brunet smiled. "Do I have to?" he mumbled sarcastically.


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: See one of the earlier chapters. All belongs to respective owners.

* * *

The alarm clock rang. A hand slithered out of the covers and briskly slammed down on it, stopping both the buzzing and the clock. Alex pushed his head out over the sheets and face-faulted. "Oops." He'd need to get it replaced. Maybe his sister would be so kind as to comply...

"Good morning!" said Hawk brightly, flying over and pulling on Alex's spiky hair. "Isn't it simply a beautiful Monday?"

The disgruntled teenager's face was the vision of horror. "Aw, darn!" he grumbled, jumping up and racing towards the bathroom. The black-haired sprite gave him some strange looks as he disappeared through the door.

Two minutes. Then there was a loud cry. "Erica! Get out of here!" yelled another voice.

Hawk sniggered into his fist. As the moments passed, it slowly developed into pure laughter.

Then, after another five minutes, Alex caught him. He was holding a broom in his hand. Hawk stopped mid-guffaw. "Oops."

"_I'll_ give _you_ oops, alright!!!" And that was how Alex's morning went.

KHKHKH

Alex hit the desk exhausted. His morning had been completely hectic and he was sure the rest of the day was not going to go so smoothly.

He looked up at Mr Damashii's desk and remembered something. Both Mr Damashii and the mystery boy from the other day, when he had met Umi no Shirube, had blue hair. Blue, blue, blue... surely all blue-haired people were related, right? It wasn't a widespread phenomenon, and both looked to have natural blue hair rather than dyed. Okay, the boy's was questionable because it had looked slightly dirty. It was actually denim, but it really had looked dirty. And Mr Damashii's hair was bright sapphire, like his eyes. And he sounded oh, so racist in his head now that he thought about blue-haired people being related. Kate was going to kill him.

Who the hell was Kate, anyway?

He shook himself, and turned to see Okan standing next to him in his usual goofy way. "Hey, Okan," he said.

"Hi." He had this strange eager look about him. Alex was willing to bet he had some new crazy factoid hidden up his thick sleeves, like how he and his pals had once drugged Derest, pulled him into a maid's outfit and blackmailed him with the pictures. This explained dot-like the scar on Okan's head: Derest had thrown the feather duster at him, striking him between the eyes. "I had this really awesome idea."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Tell me. You might just brighten up my day after that bathroom incident."

Okan raised an eyebrow. "What, were you caught-"

"_No_!"

"Sure, you weren't." Alex growled, the vein in his head close to an explosion, and the blond ducked down. Behind him, Sora snickered girlishly. Okan put up his hands, not noticing how the boy suddenly looked startled and shrunk with a puppy-dog stare at an invisible somebody. "Okay, okay. Not hurting anybody," he said, before continuing. "You know that, on this world, you had a guy named Elvis?"

Alex looked critical already. "This doesn't sound good," he told himself under his breath. But he nodded anyway. Okan was often enough to cheer him up.

"Well, remember that he died - died on the toilet?"

And now Alex was traumatised. He hoped, for all that was good and decent in the world, that Okan wasn't about to imply about Elvis Presley, the widely asserted King of rock and roll, what he had just implied about Alex mere seconds ago at the mention of the 'bathroom incident'. And if he did, well, a certain brunet was not going to show as much as a lick of happiness. Hawk wouldn't be the only one who got a beating on that particular Monday-eighth of October.

"Well, what if he didn't die? What if he, he was attacked by a Heartless instead?"

"No, I'm pretty sure it was the obesity that got him," Alex mumbled nonchalantly. "Although a Heartless would explain his age."

"And his heart came out, and it possessed the toilet he died in, and the toilet became a new kind of Heartless?"

Alex sighed, partly in relief that Okan hadn't gone as far as the innuendo and partly of tiring from his idiocy. "Right. And it attacks you by pulling you in with a plunger and giving you a swirly."

KHKHKH

Sora kept steady, his wooden sword aimed at the target. Not that he knew, being blindfolded. Part of the points on Mr Ishioka's unusual curriculum was the need to sense objects in front by the infrared radiation that they gave out. They were to do this exercise with differently coloured and heated targets as they got on. They would only pass this part of the class if they were able to attack a red target at zero degrees Celsius, when the lowest possible amount of infrared was emitted. Currently, they were on the first target, which was black and close to the boiling point of the plastic.

Mr Ishioka stood next to the training box, with Gregory and Alex standing next to him. Both boys were, incredibly, on the same level of intelligence at this point. Neither knew the point of the exercise - they had both been told that the most important part of fighting was to use your eyes to determine the enemy's next move. Now that theory was to be dealt away with, which messed up all of their previous training.

"Mr Nomura," Mr Ishioka said, that tone of familiarity present in his voice, "now is the time to remain careful. Close your eyes and feel your surroundings. Your spell-casting ability was rated high; I expect a very good attack." He pressed a series of buttons on the remote; a white sign popped up in front of Sora reading 'Stop' in burning letters. "Can you read that?" The boy nodded, to no-one's real surprise. He was a walking, talking thermograph. "Okay. Go!"

The spiky-haired boy tensed up, and feebly muttered, "_Stopga_!" A weak blast of energy hit the target and dissipated upon contact. At once the pads and wires attached to Sora's arms switched on, giving the boy a nasty electric shock.

"Sorry," the teacher said, raising more eyebrows. Mr Ishioka never said sorry to anybody. Sora stepped down from the platform glumly, walking out of the training arena. "What was wrong, Mr Nomura? I thought you were brilliant at magic."

"It's just that one," Sora replied a little too quickly. "We're not really comfortable with it."

Mr Ishioka put up a hand. "It's okay. I understand the laws of religion. You don't have to cast a Stop-type spell if you're not comfortable with it." He looked over his over two words. "Hmm... Mr Zivaku, do you want to try?"

The black-haired boy nodded and walked towards the arena. Sora rushed over to Alex, happy to get off the soapbox for once. Alex noticed how his right arm was slack by his side. He was about to drop the sword and he didn't notice at all. There was definitely something wrong. "What was the problem, Sora?" he asked. "Religion wasn't it, was it?"

The caramel-haired boy looked a little uneasy as he answered. "Actually... we never quite mastered Stop as well as the other spells," he said in a low voice, so as Mr Ishioka couldn't hear what he was saying. "We just have this problem with it. It might be genetic, or something."

"I don't even believe it's possible to stop time," Alex said, making Sora look up. "It all seemed totally ridiculous to me, magic."

Before he could continue, there was a knock on the door of the gymnasium. Mr Ishioka excused himself to walk over and talk to the boy standing in the archway. The kid looked rather familiar, having walnut brown hair and very sharp light brown eyes. He looked somewhat like Sorin no Yami, a boy in Alex's class. In fact, the only real differences between the two were the clarity of their eyes and the colour of coat slung over his shoulder. The long trench coat was a pale honey-like tone, while Sorin's clothing was always either matte black or blood red.

Sora crossed his arms. "They'd better not be talking about that deal, or the Headmaster won't be the only one," he whispered.

The Lockshield Wielder looked at him oddly. "What deal?" he asked.

The other laughed nervously. "We weren't meant to say that!"

Mr Ishioka and the boy finished their conversation. The navy-haired teacher walked over to Alex. "Headmaster Yamamoto wishes to see you. Trouble at home, apparently."

"Trouble?" Alex raised an eyebrow, then looked back at Sora.

The boy smiled sweetly. "It'll be okay."

"Don't worry," Mr Ishioka said, "you'll get your practice in. We'll do it tomorrow, or you could fit it in in the morning if you're able enough."

KHKHKH

Alex approached the door nervously. Okay, so it wasn't so much a door as a rather blank blue wall. Grim as the place was, however, he had to admit the system was clever. Nobody would know where to find the man if they had disagreeable business with him. But still, he knocked on the bricks and leaned against the lockers, trying to think.

A shadow passed over him, and he looked up. There was a black-haired man, about the age of twenty, standing next to him. His clothes were mostly black, but they weren't appropriate around school, not by a long shot. He was dressed more to obtain the attention of girls mostly, judging by the freedom with which he was clothed. The shirt had an open collar unbuttoned enough revealing what hinted at a muscular chest. He was wearing a lot of silver jewellery. The trousers were a little tight around the thighs. Alex averted his eyes. Jesus, he hoped he'd picked the right wall.

Luckily, he had, so when the door opened out of nothingness, he stepped inside. There was already a female student talking to the Headmaster. She had long light brown hair that curled under her ears and a strong nose. She wasn't wearing the school skirt; instead she was wearing jeans. The headmaster was talking in a hushed tone with her, but it entailed something about age. Maybe it was to do with the man outside?

"I must remind you that this is unacceptable in this world," he was saying. "It is not illegal, but it is unacceptable."

"I know that!" Another British accent, but this one was slightly sharper than Okan or Derest's. "I'm keeping it as secret as I-"

"Mr Karsath?" The headmaster looked up at the boy. The girl, now startled, ducked down behind a thick curtain of hair.

Alex's face began to tinge a light red. "I can come back later, but you said about... trouble at home?" His voice was a little faster. No-one could blame him; it was an awkward moment indeed.

The bandaged man nodded. "Yes," he replied, "it is an immediate problem. I've arranged for your transport home already; I believe Mr Nozue will be driving you. He has a fantastic memory for maps, so he shouldn't take long to find your apartment."

"May I ask as to... what the problem is?" Alex asked, already apprehensive. He could smell the trouble coming from a mile away.

"It's about your father. He's back."

KHKHKH

Mr Nozue dropped Alex off outside the flat. Before he closed the door, he poked his head out of the window and looked around. "You've got a very nice neighbourhood," he said. "I wish I could've lived here as a kid."

Alex shook his head, the first smile coming to his face since they'd initially set off. "Trust me, you don't," he said, walking up to the fire escape as usual. Mr Nozue watched him go through his dusty pink hair, before closing the door of his old red Ford and driving off. Alex wasn't shocked: according to the headmaster Marluxia Nozue had previously worked at the cemetery, tending to the graves, and was very superstitious as a result.

Now alone, he climbed laboriously up the metal ladders and to what was waiting for him. Alex had never really appreciated his father - thus his father had never really appreciated him. After he was born, Alex and his mother had simply been abandoned by him. In the first few years, the visits had apparently been frequent, including the fact that he had stuck around for Erica. But after a while, the trips began to take longer and longer, gradually until he had just disappeared in the rain one night, saying something about needing to find out whom he was. They had just been left alone in the apartment. The last time he had been home was three years ago.

And the man was back now? Alex had half a mind to kill him on sight with a sniper rifle. It wasn't like he hated him. It was actually quite the contrary. He wanted his father to like him. And he was ignored all the time. So, groaning, he pushed open the door, blanking out everything as he sat down, summoned the Lockshield in frustration and buried his head behind it. Today was not a good day to be alive.

"Excuse me?" said a crisp tenor voice. "I don't know who you are..." Alex's eyes drifted back to see a wool-clad torso, "...but you're sitting on me."

Alex moved the rating of the day from 'plain not good' to 'disastrously horrible'. He moved over on the sofa, allowing the man some feeling back into his legs, and spared a quick glance at him. He was blond, with incredibly spiky hair - so much that one side of his fringe decided to fan out in a sharp, tall formation like a sun. He had cool blue eyes like a sky. He had a stud depicting a dragon in his left earlobe. His form was slightly defined, but he was quite tall and thin rather than having a very developed body. He was wearing very dull clothing, and sitting by his feet was a giant sports bag. His face was currently contracted into a state of mild surprise at the 'strange teenager'.

To tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, Cloud Karsath hadn't physically changed.

"Hello, dad," Alex said, growling a little. Attention-seeking as he was, he couldn't help but feel a little hostile towards his father.  
Cloud just blinked. "Is that my kid all grown up or are you just a ticked off teenager wandering in my home by accident?" he said, face blank. Alex just rolled his eyes. Then they nearly popped out of his socket. His dad had reached over and hugged him.

"Good God, I missed you guys and I can't believe I missed my very own son (and first child) go through puberty!" the blond literally chanted, crushing him with semi-powerful arms. Maybe Erica's randomness came from somewhere, then. "I can't believe it, you're so grown up and I'm such an idiot!"

"I can't believe you were _worried_!" Alex cried, truly amazed. He honestly didn't get it one bit. His father had never cared for him before. What had changed?

Cloud let go. "Why wouldn't I be?" he asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. The expression was just like Erica's. "You're my son, and I wasn't there to watch you grow up."

Aeris walked through the door. She was positively glowing. She wandered over and held her husband close, a serene expression coming to her. Alex softened. Normally his mother was quite bleary-eyed, but now she was extremely happy. The change was unprecedented. It didn't make any sense. This man kept leaving her to look after the children on her own, he hadn't got a job, he didn't contribute any money to their lives... in other families, all this would be grounds for divorce.

And yet, she was happy. There was something wrong with the picture.

Well, it was an emotional thing, he guessed. Something he wouldn't understand.

KHKHKH

"Mom?" He stood at the door of his parent's bedroom. Cloud was already knocked out, buried under the covers as if he was a Christmas present. Aeris was packing his clothes into the drawers, dressed in a pink nightdress. "Why do you still love him?"

She looked up, her green eyes the warmest they had been in years. "Because I know it's not his choice to leave home, sweetie. He's not even of this world," she explained, "and he has friends elsewhere. He likes to see them as well as us. But he gets so carried away sometimes with helping others that the journey begins to take time."

He shuffled noiselessly in the doorframe. "Time. Three years." He rubbed his eyes. "He didn't realise what that meant for us, I guess?"

"He wants to visit his home, and his friends. Zack and Tifa. I met them." She smiled. "He came from quite the headstrong community. They like to prove themselves there. So, whenever somebody is in trouble, they flock to help. Sometimes your father becomes so swallowed up by the thought of being a hero that it blanks out everything else. I like that quality in him. He tries so hard to be the hero that I didn't get to be because I was a girl, to give me some of the thrill at least." She grew solemn for a second. "But his last journey took so long... I wonder what adventures he had back at his home."

He sighed, and turned to leave. "Me too."

"It's all thanks to the holy heart," his mother added. "Without it, you couldn't travel from world to world. Because of the holy heart, I met your father and my one true love."

Yeah... one true love... he wanted that someday. Tonight, however, he was hopefully going to sleep.

And that was how Alex's day went.


	16. Chapter 16

The End Arch nears.

Disclaimer earlier in story.

* * *

It was a few nights later when trouble began to brew. Cloud was settling into the house just fine; it looked like he was going to stay for a while. As expected, he was praising of his virtually rag-tag daughter, and Alex did little but to sit in the background, averting his eyes. All of this family stuff was disgusting, especially when it was only really temporary. Aeris was happy, of course, and Sephiros was aloof most of the time, almost as if he was afraid of the man. Alex would have to intervene with his mother's hopes and his grandfather's fears at some point or other.  
That night, Alex just pushed himself out of bed, tired. He couldn't sleep. Life was burning in his blood like a blazing fire. Grumbling, he put on a jacket and his black-and-green trainers, walking out of his bedroom.

Something felt different in the air as he traipsed through the house quietly. He was going to be a little more careful than he had been that time he'd slipped out through the window; he didn't want to drop again. So he was going out by the more traditional route - he was to leave by the fire escape.  
He passed by the mirror, then backtracked and took a deep look into it. Joumae manifested inside.

_Problem in your dreams?_ he said. His face was unusually serious.

Alex was silent for a second. "Nah," he lied back. "Just some unsettling thoughts." He began to move again, but not before Joumae stopped him.

_You're not very good at telling fibs_, he muttered through the glass. Alex looked to the side, then caught his glance again.

"Somebody came to me in my sleep," he said, walking off and leaving the verdant in the mirror. Alex could see the confusion in his mind's eye - that part was too obvious, even without looking. Of course, it wasn't like he had much of a choice, thanks to him. Besides, he should know, anyway. The guy existed in his head, with access to all he thought and imagined. It would be easy just to sift through his mind and find out without having to talk.  
But it didn't feel that much like that, tonight. Tonight it felt more like they were disconnected.

_Just like the worlds that guy in my head mentioned_, Alex thought, and he shuddered as he remembered. There was something creepy in that. The speech had been terribly grim. If everything centred around the holy heart, that meant nobody was free if something happened to it. And it also meant that whoever died went straight to the holy heart, no goodbyes. Christ, religion was a hopeful mistress. No ghosts, no spectres, because there was no time to say goodbye.

Come to think about it, how had he appeared? There was no way somebody could invade his mind - unless they were Joumae, that is. Maybe it had been Joumae, just in disguise... no, that was too smart, even for him. And that kid had had blue eyes. Blue eyes just like Sora's... but it _couldn't_ have been Sora; Sora couldn't invade his mind like that. That'd be too good a skill of the boy. Then again, he had looked like he had done it before. And he had used the term 'us' when there had only been Alex with him. That trait belonged to Sora. But, at the same time, maybe it wasn't Sora. Maybe Sora simply used the 'royal we' because he actually just had somebody like Joumae in his mind.

But that wouldn't make sense! How could he?

Was it something to do with the Keyblade? Was the Keyblade that thing that the stranger was holding? Suppose it was, though, it wouldn't explain any of what had happened then. If it was so, Joumae probably would have either gone to Sora or fell asleep for another forty years. Then he would be worse when he finally escaped.

He shrugged. It didn't matter to him anymore. He was simply going to live with Joumae, just like how his mother and his grandfather had taught him to.

He reached the forest green door and paused in his actions, hand already on the bar. Was he really going to do this?

Laughing, he pushed open the fire escape and walked outside, letting a breeze blow about him. He had to. If he didn't, his natural instinct for danger was going to dull down and he'd be a total disgrace. He and Joumae needed to solve the problem instead of just talking about it.

It was going to be another Thursday of trouble, he assumed, climbing down the ladder. Just another God-damned Thursday.

The night air felt a little fresher around the cuffs of his feet. There was rain coming down. The weather was finally cooling down, although not by much. This was America. During the day it was to hot to move your arm; it'd be stuck to whatever you were leaning on by a mix of sweat and some mush made from heating that surface. And during the night it was still humid. This cold wind and its partnering rain were a welcome change from the usual oven conditions that he had to live through every day.

In fact, it was much warmer than normal this autumn. He'd heard some news of it being almost at boiling point down south in California. He hoped nothing went wrong there. People could get hurt if the wildfires were to start again. And celebrities didn't have immunity to burns, no matter what godlike status was granted them.

He sure hoped that the holy heart knew what it was doing.

KHKHKH

He saw a quite young-looking lady standing by the bus stop, and he stopped. She was holding up an umbrella which hid her face, but what he could see of her long hair was that it was a silky chocolate colour. Her skin looked pale, from what he saw of her arms. Her costume was very strange for this country. It consisted of a long pastel dress with short sleeves, like a working woman's dress, covered by a soft white apron that was bare of any decoration whatsoever. She had five paper bags by her feet carrying fresh fruit and vegetables from the greengrocer's, and in another bag was some chicken and beef. That also was strange. Most people only bought ready-made food these days. She looked extremely familiar to him, but he couldn't place where.

She looked over to him with warm cerulean eyes. "Oh, hello, young man," she said in a strictly polite tone. If Alex had been blind, he probably would have been convinced that he had run into Aeris. "Does anybody know you're out this late?" She looked worried. Maybe she had children of her own. That would explain the clothes; the uniform of the classic stereotypical housewife.

He shook his head. "Sorry, ma'am," he said, bowing politely. "I guess I should have told somebody."

"You should have!" the woman scolded. "Maybe you should march right home. It's raining."

"I was about to say that to you, ma'am," Alexander replied. He gave a pointed look at the bags around her feet. They were beginning to saturate. "Can I help you in any way?"

She looked at him imploringly. "Personally, I reckon I can carry this myself," she said, slowly smiling. "But you should get home. It's no time for a young, sprightly boy such as yourself to be out, or even awake."

"Come on, I'm not a pre-schooler! Um... not to be disrespectful or anything," he apologised, still trying to clutch onto his formalities. "Should I walk you back home? It's no trouble, ma'am."

She tipped her head at him. He still didn't know where he'd seen her! She was very familiar, but... he couldn't tell if he'd ever seen her at all, if you know what I mean. "Oh, don't worry, I'm sure I can get home. Just make sure to be careful, young man." She winked, hoping he got the hint.

Alex, fortunately, understood. She was only calling him a young 'man' because he'd been nice to her. In any other situation, he'd just be a 'boy'. Smiling to her, he walked off into the night.

KHKHKH

She wandered down the street, some blocks from her house. What was she doing out here? she asked herself as she walked on. She knew not to go walking alone at night. And like some kind of common idiot she'd gone ahead and done so. Intelligence had not served this woman well down this new stretch of her life.

Maybe she shouldn't have turned down that offer from that nice young man who had offered to walk her back to her house. In fact, he reminded her of her two sons. They were a pair of sweet young boys who always thought for others first. She had raised them that way. Maybe one day, they'd meet again and those two would offer her the chance to go back to her real home with them, and they could live happily together again. And she could get some of her good stew into the elder boy's stomach again, so that he'd actually swallow some milk for once.

She looked into the alleyway next to her. There was a glint. She cocked her head at the gleam, then, looking around, set her bags down. She propped up her umbrella over them, then wandered into the darkness.

She picked up the item with confusion. It was a rather heavy golden sculpture, in the shape of a man fighting a huge serpent on a cliff. The serpent was a Chinese dragon with finely carved scales and deep eyes made from rubies set into the shining yellow metal. The man was dressed in an overcoat. He was carrying an old pistol in one hand, a lamp in the other. The character was standing in front of a slot. Clipped onto the dragon's lower jaw was a shining crystal earring. There was no label.

But it hadn't been dropped into the alley by accident. It had been standing on its base. Further confused, the woman looked around, wondering who could have lost it.

"Maybe it belonged to the museum," she finally said, and walked back to her bags.

At least, she would have. There was a flurry of black and white, and she looked down at her hands to find the statue had disappeared from her grasp. She looked up to see a laughing girl.

"You think I'd let go of this tribute to twentieth century moulding?" Umi no Shirube sang into the night. "Look at the craftsmanship! This belongs to the collector with the truest appreciation for such long hours slaving over a hot furnace!" She laughed merrily, stroking the dragon's back. Then she spotted the hole for the earring and the slot. "Oh, no! There are pieces _missing_!? Such things like this can only be enjoyed in their entirety!"

The woman looked up, amazed. "A floating girl?" she asked herself, confused.

"Oh!" Umi no Shirube bowed in mid-air. "I _demand_ you tell me where the missing pieces are! I might just call my handsome little friend along! He'd move you from the Louvre to the Tate Modern in opinion in a heartbeat or two!" So enthralled the woman was by Umi no Shirube, that she didn't see the shadows creeping up behind here. Suddenly, the hovering little girl shrieked. "Uh, oh! Incomplete art or not, I don't wanna be swallowed by shadows!" She retreated best as she could; there wasn't much she knew to do in the way of magic or fighting. All she ever did was stealing under people's noses!

The elder female raised an eyebrow before looking around. Hundreds of Shadows were surrounding her. She looked down at the earring in her left hand. One of the Heartless caught this simple gesture, and lurched at her, grabbing for the piece of jewellery.

KHKHKH

Alexander jumped, then looked around. "Darn!" he swore, running off in the direction of the woman he had seen.

KHKHKH

She backed up into the wall, horrified. "What are these things?" she asked herself, putting a hand to her mouth. She'd luckily dodged the Heartless's sorry attack at her hand, but she had chosen to run into the alleyway to get away and now she was trapped. She wished she'd done otherwise. Now she was going to pay for her mistakes.

"They're Heartless!" Alex cried, suddenly jumping into the fray, the Lockshield held steady in his hands. "Stand back, ma'am!"

A shining light burst forth from his body. At once, all of him was ensnared in the darkness. Apparently his light hadn't quite gotten the message that using this was perfectly safe. But not that either of the Karsaths who cared about the transformation actually cared about the transformation. Neither Alex nor Sephiros were very aware that the battle between Alex's inner elements took place at all. Joumae was... he just liked to be a git and not talk about it. Just like any other counterpart in the world, he wasn't there to help.

Well, in his opinion. Right now, though, he was needed in the world by a very nice young lady who seemed too familiar for words.

So, Joumae stood there in his gleaming armour, looking positively pleased with himself. He should have been - he'd only been speaking to Alex through a mirror for weeks, and the only other person he could converse with was Erica. Now he was out in the open, doing what he did best: first he was going to fight the Heartless, then he was going to try and hook up with the woman. A very one-track mind, surely, but he still had his sexist eyes set on owning his very own harem. And he was going to get it, no matter what other plans his host had for him.

"Surely you can't call them that," the woman said, still amazed by the transformation. "Think of their feelings!"

"_Girl, that's all they are. Nothing else to them_," Joumae answered back, then ran forward. At once, all of the creatures decided that this boy would be absolutely delicious, and dived on top of him. Joumae was caught in a giant dip-and-dive of Heartless bounding over his head, all trying to get at him and spectacularly failing with a crash into the pavement. Joumae could have winced. Alex had almost gotten that injury once, when fighting against Living Bones Heartless. Well, it had been more like fighting on Living Bones, but nobody was standing there at the moment to discriminate against the description. Or was that on the description? ...wait, no, it wasn't. That would make no sense at all.

The woman cried out as one of the monsters pounced. Joumae responded with a powerful slash in the Shadow's direction, ripping the creature apart. A shining pink heart flew up into the air. She stared as he ran back, holding the Lockshield low to undercut the Heartless, tearing through the hordes of enemies. There was something very strange about him. The sweet child she'd met before under an umbrella was gone, replaced by a fighter.

The verdant backed up slightly. "_There's more than I'm used to_," he muttered. "_Somebody from another world must have drawn followers._"

The rain ripped down from the sky, blurring his view. Now thoroughly soaked, the bystander hid back into the shadows. She looked fully ridden of any previous class. Her hair was plastered across her face. The dress and apron clung wet to her thin body. Once again, Joumae was forced to avert his gaze. He had better things to concentrate on. Like the new wave of Heartless headed for him that moment.

He rubbed his eyes and stared up. Somebody had invited a giant Heartless to the party, and one who looked important. It had huge black, rippling muscles on a well-built frame. Its head and scalp was hidden behind Medusa-like tentacles that waved around menacingly. Two pale yellow eyes, almost white in the darkness, peered down from a black face. Growls echoed down to the ground, and both humans shrunk down in fear. Even Joumae was scared.

Meanwhile, two brown eyes glared up from a puddle. _That's the thing that swallowed me the first time I was there at the Station!_ Alex yelled through the wind. Joumae looked down at the puddle in amazement.

"_How'd you get there!?_"

_I don't know!_ Alex hammered on what looked like the surface of the water, but what must have felt like concrete. _But fight it!_

The warrior boy smirked to his more serious-looking reflection, then looked up at the Heartless in admiration. "_Something like this came for the Keyhole_," he commented, then ran forward, tracing its path. Strangely, the huge creature was walking away from them, further down the street. The other Shadows must either have been stragglers, or there was something left for them to take from the young lady. He looked back at her and noticed how she was clutching something desperately in her hand.

He waved to her. "_Pass it!_" Understanding, she threw it over to him, and he waved it around in the air. "_Hey, lackeys!_" Immediately, they took attention, and flooded out of the alleyway in a swirling mass of claws and black and yellow. The armoured teenager ducked down into the shadows. A few of them had an epiphany - well, a small idea was an epiphany to the non-thinking - and jumped up like dolphins, all flying towards the hidden bit of green that signified the possessed body. Panicking, Joumae scuttled off, then turned back to see the idiotic creatures-

-being wasted?

Sora was stood in the middle of where the Heartless had previously been, a clear ring surrounding him. He was clutching his two familiar weapons of a toy sword and a baton, and his hair was pressed down over his face. He was breathing heavily, exhausted for some reason. Joumae looked around. The giant Heartless had disappeared completely.

A strange, black and white form hovered down. "Hey!" cried Umi no Shirube. She was holding the gold statue. "Somebody took down the big Heartless, and he had this _huge_ key-like sword!"

"_What!?_" both Joumae and Sora said, then Sora looked at Joumae in question. Joumae checked him back. For some reason he was holding his weapons under his armpits, hands on the hilts of both sticks.

At once, Joumae's arm raised and the Lockshield lined up with the sculpture. A beam of light span out from the keyhole in the Lockshield to the sculpture, which then reflected up and struck a huge shape in the sky. The world around him swirled into a beautiful purple and brown nebula, with tiny lights of new stars poking through the darkness. The light locked, and Joumae felt himself jump into position. Standing with his legs apart, he looked up determined at the Keyhole and thrust his shield forward, squinting at the bright glow of the celestial lock. A loud clicking noise rang out through his very heart, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He felt Alex tense up and his metaphysical head lock up.

And then it was all over, and he looked into the puddles, hair actually stuck down. Poor Alex's hair was still stuck up. _What was that?_ asked the brunet.

"I think... that was the Keyhole," he whispered, so as not to alert anybody. Umi no Shirube raised an eyebrow, but that was the most of it. The woman was gone, having fled. He looked to Sora. "What were you doing here?" he asked.

"We're here to see what was going on," Sora said, breathless with a hysterical smile on his face. "So this is what you do!"

Joumae affixed the jewellery to his earlobe. "_Indeed it is._"


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Same as usual. No own what isn't mine.

* * *

Alex fell over on the desk. "What on earth are you talking about, Mr Damashii?" he asked.

The blue-haired teacher looked up, horrified. "What am I talking about!? Excuse me, young man, but you understand how I can't let anybody just fail the mid-term exams on Heartless Identification like that. I'm afraid it's pathetic." He adjusted his ponytail and impressive-looking crest of hair and leaned back to sit on his desk. "And I thought you were going to be my best student, too." He crossed his arms. "You should be ashamed of yourself, Mr Karsath. You come from a legendary family and you fail like this. It's like a soap opera."

"Oh, trust me," the boy groaned. "I'm feeling like a soap opera. I mindlessly attacked my sister, I had to save a lady five days ago and there's this kid walking around that looks suspiciously like me. I can't even listen stra- I'm rambling. Brilliant!" He hit his head on the desk repeatedly.

Mr Damashii tensed. "A kid that looks like you?" he asked, his tone stiff.

Alex, however, was blind to this, his face buried in his arms. "Yeah, and the crazy thing is, out of every disability in the world, he just _had_ to have an eye patch. I keep thinking about what I'll look like with a blind eye now. Not so much what it feels like as what it looks like. I think everything will just be two-D or something. And I'll look like a pirate."

Mr Damashii became soft and squishy again. "Oh, I've met pirates. They're not too pleasant when drunk, I just have to tell you that. This one friend of mine, Jack," and he got up, "is never sober. So he walks leaning over to one side." And he demonstrated, leaving Alex to stifle a laugh with his sleeve. "Then there's Captain Hook. Lost a hand to a crocodile a while back. Now every time he hears a clock ticking, he cowers in the corner like a baby and calls his cabin 'boy'-" insert air quotes here, "-to deal with the problem. He's been doing that for twenty years, and the boy who threw the hand in? He never grew up. Literally. Peter's in the year above you."

After a few more laughs, of which many were very much like the backing track on an episode of _Friends_, they finally calmed down, and Mr Damashii slid a piece of paper into Alex's hands. He looked down, confused.

"Alice?" he asked.

"She's the legendary 'girl of Wonderland'," Mr Damashii replied. "They say she wandered into the painting one day, and she never stepped out again. I want you to do this for some make-up research. Find out how the Heartless are ensnared in her story and I might give you a leg-up to stay in my class." He looked around. "That is, if you want to stay here."

"'Course I do," Alex said, head snapping up. "You're a great teacher. I'm just a terrible student."

Mr Damashii frowned. "That's not a healthy thing to say. Hope your brain kicks in before it's too late. Wouldn't want you going somewhere you shouldn't go, okay?" He turned around, packing his necessaries into his bag in order to leave. It was the end of the school day, and Alex had just failed his exam, although by just two marks. If he didn't make up for it with a level twenty paper at least, he would leave the class and be sent to another class. He hoped he didn't get into a class with Pyro. He didn't want the walls melting around him every time some poor kid insulted the guy's gingery-brown hair.

The brunet sulked, then looked up at the door. Sora was standing there, along with Hawk, who was waving something around in his miniature hands. Alex was confused. There was no reason for them to be there - at least, no normal reason. Normally, Sora would be going home with Riku, but Riku had walked off with a shoebox, saying something about studying things with the headmaster.

He excused himself, bowing to the teacher, before walking out into the hall to greet the two. He picked up the object that Hawk held, a palm-sized mouse symbol on a chain, before giving the two an odd look. "What is this?" he asked.

"It came from that guy who took down the giant Heartless," Hawk said.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. That thing was on my exam. According to the answers, it's named Darkside. I guess I wasn't paying attention."

The sprite flew up in front of his face. "Dunno, don't care, but it's a Keychain!" he cried, flying around like a random cartoon of Roger Rabbit. "Sora can identify them! According to him it's definitely a Keychain, and it looks something quite powerful."

Alex was quite overjoyed from this news and, at the same time, a little uneasy. "So the guy really was a Keyblade Wielder, like Umi no Shirube said," he confirmed. "That's great. Now we know there's somebody in this very city who took the Keyblade from my family. And now we also know he senses Heartless like Joumae and I can." He brushed his right ear, annoyed slightly. Joumae was wearing the mysterious earring still, claiming that it made him look sexy. Because it was on Joumae, it made Alex's ear itch like there was no tomorrow, and as with eczema the skin would be eradicated in ten minutes. He wasn't used to having an earring - Joumae had put it in just barely missing a vein, and the blood had continued for a while.

Sora himself looked a little misbalanced. "Yeah," he agreed, then changed the subject swiftly. "What was it Mr Damashii held you back for?"

"He wants me to research somebody called Alice for a paper, see if I can major in something else to stick in the class," Alex explained. "Thing is, I need a lot of information about her in a short time."

"Well, why don't we ask our fighting teacher, Mr Ishioka?" Sora asked. "We're sure he might be able to dig something up about Alice. He's usually pretty good at these things. He tends to speed-read too, so you get your information in a short time."

Alex nodded, then looked at Hawk. "You don't mind?" he said.

"Nah," Hawk said, crossing his arms behind his back. "I don't really. Besides, it'll help me get my mind off a few things."

KHKHKH

They made to the gymnasium in a good five minutes. The electrician, Ms Nozue, was standing on top of a stepladder, pulling out a few wires and rearranging them. There was something creepy about seeing a red wire in the ceiling of a school building which made you feel quite anxious, especially when the electrician had a pair of golden-yellow antennae. Meanwhile Mr Ishioka was leaning against a wall, his nose buried in a book entitled The Art Of War. The front cover had Chinese letters inscribed. He looked up to see the boys standing there: two of his students, one in incorrect uniform as usual, and a floating character that looked to come from the same world as the YuRiPa.

"Can I help you boys?" he asked, looking rather bored with himself.

"We need to know about Alice, the girl in the painting," Alexander said, fidgeting nervously. His shaky disposition was starting to get the better of him. "We were hoping you had some information about her."

Zexion waved the book in his hand around. "What do I look like? Mr Zivaku, maybe?" he sneered slightly. "I may be intelligent, but I'm not a walking encyclopaedia of all phenomena in the world."

Sora deflated - almost literally. "Aww, Mr Ishioka!" he pleaded, doing his best puppy-dog face. Both the black-haired sprite and the brunet stared. Even Ms Nozue turned around to narrow her eyes a little. "Please, don't let us down! Surely you know something!"

Mr Ishioka looked around. Ms Nozue got the message and turned around, continuing her work programming the blitzball stadium. The games hadn't started yet because the pool couldn't be raised; somewhere the wiring had gone faulty. When it was set up, Wakka Inakura would be the captain of the team and Tiida Ohori would apparently be the star. They'd done some private trials together to find some new players. Alex hadn't signed up. He wasn't much for sports anyway. "Well, I do know one thing - the person who painted the picture attends this very school as a student. She's thirteen years old, but she painted that mural down by the art block with Ms Saffron in it."

"_She_ painted _that_!?" Alex gaped.

"Who's the student?" Sora's knees were knocking together.

"Her name's Ms Tanaka, I believe," said Mr Ishioka. At once Sora's face turned bright red. The fighting instructor gave Sora a very blank look. "Something wrong?"

We-we didn't realise it was Na... Na..." He gulped. "_Naminé_."

Mr Ishioka smirked. He'd just found Sora's weak spot. "Well, she keeps the painting in her house. It's more of an urban legend than a proper legend. You can go visit her; I know Mr Karsath's runaway friend Ms Uong should be able to fish out her home address from the school files. She has an ability called Steal. Normally battlers use Steal to take items from monsters in the field, but I'm sure she'll turn her talents to other goals if you persuade her." He walked off, and Ms Nozue, finally free from his glare, wiped her forehead in relief and stepped down from the ladder, the hatch in the ceiling closed. She picked it up and took it away under her arm.

KHKHKH

Grace agreed to search out the files for Naminé's home address. She was in the hall of records at the moment, searching away through many hundreds of files for 'Tanaka, Naminé'. Meanwhile, the boys were standing outside. Hawk was in the records hall with Grace at the moment; she had only approved of him because he was small and, being about a sixth the size of the human body, able to wriggle into tight places. Unfortunately for Sora and Alex, neither was slender enough to join him. They didn't really think that branch of detective work would be their forte - yet, ironically enough, it was the very thing that the assignment called for.

"So," Alex began, "what's the deal with you and Naminé, anyway?"

"It's complicated," Sora stalled. "Something we'd rather not speak of at this moment."

"Come on..." Sora looked at Alex and was met with two very authoritative eyes. Very different to Sora's face ten minutes ago. In fact, Alex now bore a huge resemblance to his grandfather. "You want a Lockshield up your butt or are you going to talk?"

The caramel-haired boy face-faulted. "You're beginning to scare us, you know..." he mumbled, putting up his arms to defend himself. "Don't hurt us if we don't give answers!" he squeaked.

Alex was now scared to the point of his heart stopping. Sora, once again, was acting girlishly - though he didn't know if that would be an insult or a compliment. There was something wrong with this boy's head to make him act like that and he knew it. Sora was blushing bright red. Red signalled danger; he'd crossed the line when starting off the subject. Not only that, but the arms seemed defensive. He was probably trying to hide that bright red face as much as he currently wanted to shield himself.

And then it all clicked into place. There was no other reason that Sora Nomura would be that interested in a thirteen-year-old girl unless he was _that_ interested in a thirteen-year-old girl.

"Sora, have you got a crush on her?" The other boy shrank down again until he was curled up on the floor like a hedgehog. Alex paused, then reached out a hand tenderly. "Are you okay?"

The answer came whispered into the tanned boy's knees. Alex leaned in to hear more clearly. "I like her," Sora repeated more firmly.

Alex backed away, ringing his tie and not noticing how Sora had just said 'I'. "Why the hell do you like a girl who's a whole year under you at school?" he asked. "That's almost illegal in high school law."

Sora lifted his head. "She's very pretty," he replied. "And angelic."

The elder brunet raised an eyebrow. "You like a girl because she's _angelic_," he said to himself. "Dear God, my best friend handed out his masculinity at a lemonade stand when he was five years old."

Grace exited the file room, Hawk trailing after her and looking positively exhausted. She waved a file in their faces and slammed it down into Alex's hands before briskly walking off down the hall. She then looked back at them. "I'll be expecting that massage tomorrow to be very good, Alex!" she shouted back.

Sora stared at Alex. He'd made a deal with a girl before Sora could even stand _thinking_ about one himself!? What was the world coming to? "How did you..."

The Lockshield wielder shrugged. "I don't have any problem with girls," he said, beginning to leave. "Then again, I guess it doesn't count, considering I've had plenty of time to practise with you."

"Hey!"

KHKHKH

The trio lined up outside the front door. They'd found the address, alright, but at the same time it didn't seem to be. It was a tall building made of grey brick with double doors made of frosted glass. Alex looked back and forth between the thick and complicated pages of the Oregon map book and the dark walls, then at the street sign. "Are we sure this is the correct house?" he asked. "Or... district, for that matter?" he added, looking at some of the neon purple spray-paint at the base of the walls that formed curse-words and... other, much more explicit images that teenagers found a smart thing to put on people's houses. You didn't need to imagine to be able to imagine, in this case.

Sora looked over at the book. "Yeah, we're sure," he said. Then he turned incredibly pale. "Oh, God, we're in front of Naminé's house. What are we going to do? What are we going to do!?"

Alex and Hawk exchanged glances, before they both briskly smacked Sora around the back of the head. He yelped, then looked back at them confused. "What was that for!?" he squealed.

"For you to snap out of it," Hawk said in his rather high voice, his arms crossed. "You sound crazy for this girl."

"He is," Alex replied. "He fancies her." Sora squirmed.

Hawk smirked, getting an idea. "That explains it, then. Nutcase, letting it blur the task at hand..." He winked.

Alex caught the gesture and winked back. "Although the task at hand involves his crush," the brunet pointed out, wearing a cheesy grin and looking in an upwards direction like a dreamy girl. "And I can tell everything's going to go shot if he acts like that." The caramel-haired boy continued to whimper under the pressure.

"Yeah, he'll suck!" The sprite sniggered, and Sora proceeded to cover his ears with his hands.

"_Donna toki datte tada hitori de unmei wasurete ikite kita no ni_," he began singing over their conversation, "_totuzen no hikari no naka me ga sameru mayonaka ni..._"

"She'll think he's weird..." Alex trailed off and turned to the doors of the building. "Huh?" There was music coming from inside. The melody seemed to match what Sora was singing - or at least trying to sing, anyway; his slightly scratchy voice hinted that it was about to break and, because of that, his singing sounded absolutely terrible.

"_Shizuka ni deguchi_-" Sora suddenly found himself with a hand slapped across his mouth.

He grabbed the hands of both of his companions and pushed forward through the doors.

The inside of the lobby was more than frightening, and so much more off-putting than the building's exterior. The lights in the building were switched off and the pale glow from the doors cast long shadows on the floor, giving the place a creepy feel. Boards propped up on easels and giant industrial-sized tubs of acrylic paints blocked their way. Every now and then something luminous that looked like an anemone scuttled across the floor with unseen feet. The boys huddled together almost immediately after stepping inside the building, looking around.

Hawk landed lightly on the floor and watched the strange creatures pass by. "What are those guys?" he asked himself. "They look really familiar, but I can't place where."

"I know how you feel," Alex mumbled. "There was a lady the other day, and I knew I'd seen her before. I just couldn't tell where from."

"Was she from this world?" Sora put forward quietly, his bright eyes dodging around and analysing the area. "We remember seeing things on other worlds that we'd seen here."

"Yeah, apparently Earth has no imagination," the other human answered. He moved forward, watching for any highlights on objects. After walking around a few of the paintings, he stopped, looking at one. It depicted a girl from their school called Audrey walking down a busy street bustling with thousands of black and white people, while she was in colour. The music in the background was getting louder; he could also hear voices.

There was a red-headed girl standing next to a petite blonde. They were talking. "Naminé, you know how he wants to speak to you," said the redhead, and Alex recognised her. She was Kairi Hashimoto. She used to live down their street until the accident, when her parents had moved her away. "He needs to find out about the Princesses. You're hiding valuable information from him!" Princesses?

The blonde, who was obviously Naminé, laid down her paintbrush. "I can't," she said, her voice indeed angelic. Alex was beginning to understand why Sora liked her. Sora, standing next to him, was glowing red, while Hawk was just confused. "I don't know how it happened. I don't wish to know." She undid the apron ties around her waist and neck. "All I need to know is that it's too dangerous for me to go on using this power if that is what it's capable of."

"Naminé-" Kairi cut herself off, and looked at the three boys who had snuck in. The music in the background continued.

"_Urusai (when you turn my way) toori ni haitte, unmei (take it all the way) no kamen o tore..._"

"What are you guys doing here?" she asked, her pupils virtually slits as she walked around them. Alex shivered; her glare was much more calculating than it had been years ago.

"We needed to know about Alice in the painting," Hawk said bravely. "It's an assignment for Mr Damashii."

Kairi paled, then ran out of the room. The trio watched, then looked back to see Naminé holding up the paintbrush. She was dressed in a basic white dress without decoration and a pair of sea blue sandals. She wasn't happy. Sora fidgeted slightly as he looked away from her, trying to control himself.

"_Mirai wa zutto saki da yo. Boku ni mo wakaranai..._"

"You came in without asking?" she said, her tone still sweet.

Alex scratched the back of his head. "Yeah, sorry. We just wanted to take a look at the painting you did," he said. "The one they say a girl named Alice stepped into in that urban legend."

Naminé turned away from them. "You don't want to."

Hawk flew over. "Come on, will you let us look?" he pleaded. "Please. I'm kinda tired of listening to Sora being a chicken and not wanting to talk to you. Please? I'll - um..." He looked around for an idea. His eyes settled on a picture of a skyscape. "I'll take you to another world!"

The angelic girl looked at him, then nodded. "Okay."


	18. Chapter 18

**Hawkblade: And here's Umiyuri with an Authors Note for a Disclaimer.**

**Umiyuri's AN: I would like to say that I do not own the majority of the seemingly original characters in this story: Alex Karsath, Erica, Joumae, Erica's Nobody (Newbie-Spud); Derest (Crimson Crescent); Okan (VenomSFX); Grace (Somnio Avis); Gregory, Isaac (Gregzilla); Hawk (Hawkblade here); Mr (Xyn) Damashii (Xon). I do, however, own umi no Shirube. I also do not own Sora, Naminé, Riku, Kairi, Mr (Zexion) Ishioka, Ms (Larxene) Ito, Mr Marluxia Nozue, Prinicpal (Ansem) Yamamoto (Disney/SQUE'ENIX); Cloud, Aeris, Sephiros (SQUE'ENIX); Alice, White Rabbit & Co. (Disney/Lewis Carroll). All other characters and the manga listed below belong to who they belong to.**

* * *

"_Kimi to iu hikari ga watashi no SCENARIO utsushidasu. Motto_..."

Naminé led them through multiple canvases. Alex, Sora and Hawk gaped at the individual paintings on each of them. The girl was really as good as described by Mr Damashii. Several art pieces featured some kind of epic hero in them, running through on black wings, or a horse, or some other logo. Others showed more subtle scenes. Girls standing in fields of flowers with their boys, chasing each other as the cherry blossoms drifted down from the sky. A couple of graphic novels lay on the floor next to a canvas showing a few anime-styled characters. Alex recognised the titles: _DNAngel_, _Sailor Moon_, _Cardcaptor Sakura_, _Gravita_- okay, moving on...

Sora, meanwhile, was bewitched by every image he saw. "All these are brilliant," he said.

Naminé blushed. "Thank you very much," she said. "I paint what I see. Not physically, but mentally. And sometimes I see things that I want to." They passed by an artwork of a man with very pale pink hair that spiked up, and was brushed into a ponytail at the back. He was wearing a strange white outfit. Sora slowed to look at it, saying something under his breath, before continuing on. "But a lot of times..."

They approached the art in question. "...I see things that I _don't_." A girl with thick, flowing blonde hair in a blue frock and white frilled apron was standing in the world of a small animal. The blades of grass were freakishly tall, reaching her waist. A toadstool with a bite out of it stood behind her, red with white spots. It reached up to her shoulder, and she was backed up into it as if scared. Then there were the creatures that looked like sea anemones, which walked along in a pack the shape of an arrow. A tall pansy stood behind her. It was a flower with a difference - it had a face on its petals. It was holding its leaves up as if praying, or singing. A bread-and-butterfly hovered around in the corner of the painting.

Alex was taken aback by the detail. "It's beautiful."

Naminé smiled. "Thank you," she said. "I've never gotten much praise before, though - a lot of people don't believe I can paint these things."

"We believe you can paint anything," Sora said, looking around.

"_TEREBI keshite watashi no koto dake o miteite yo!_"

Hawk flew up and looked into the painting. As if by magic, the image flexed, and Alice appeared to look up at them in curiosity. Hawk tipped his head, then watched amazed, along with the group, as the girl approached the foreground of the image.

"She _is_ stuck in there," he said breathlessly, placing a hand to the surface of the canvas.

"I completed the picture two years ago, but somehow a girl winded up inside it," Naminé explained. "I was scared, at first, because I didn't know what to do. But it seems that Alice adjusted to Wonderland a little over all this time. She still wants to escape, though." The blonde pulled up a stool in front of the painting and sat down. "I wish I could help her. Get her out. But the reasons are something I cannot speak off, by order of that girl you just saw. Kairi."

Alex decided to ask something he'd been wondering. "Hey, how come Kairi's back here, anyway?" he said to Sora. "As far as I know, when you... died, her parents moved her out because they thought it was unsafe. How come they'd just come back like that?"

Sora looked grim. "You know as well as we do, Alex - the worlds are being destroyed. People are flooding back to Earth. It's the last safe haven." He buttoned up his small jacket and nudged Alex out of the way, walking to the painting. He then inspected it. He had the air of somebody who was about to steal - but he could never do that. Sora was too sweet and too innocent to steal anything. "Is there a way to go inside the painting?" he asked the girl, with amazing stamina this time.

Naminé laughed. "If you had a magic key that let you go in there, then sure!" she joked, but Alex was already working on it. He summoned the Lockshield out of mid-air. Naminé went blank as Alex pointed it towards the painting. The character in the painting put a hand to her mouth.

"Let's see... let me try... I dunno, _Unlock_?" Alex said randomly, and gasped as a beam of light shot from the keyhole in the centre of the Heartless crest to the painting. Alice hazily stepped back as the light surrounded Alex and Sora and then-

-they disappeared in a wave of colour.

Hawk looked around. "The _hell_!?" he shrieked, and span around several times, his eyes wandering about the building. "Where did they go?"

"To a trap," said a voice, and before Hawk knew it a bag went over his head.

KHKHKH

Alex rubbed his rear and shook his dizzy head, rolling over on the ground. "What the...?" he groaned.

Sora's voice drifted through the air. "It appears we're in."

"How in?"

"So in, you're sitting on top of us."

Alex shot up onto his feet and held out his hand. "Sorry!" he mumbled, pulling the younger boy to his feet. "Damn landings," he laughed nervously, trying to make a joke out of an already bad situation.

Sora smiled, and looked around. "This place really is a Wonderland," he said. "We can't believe Naminé made this place by herself." They were standing in a huge field of multicoloured grasses. Giant lily pads stretched out above their heads, mushrooms of varying sizes underneath. The soil was rough, rocks abound, and every now and then there was a tall tulip. A whole collection of flowers lay to one corner, pansies, roses, daisies, dandelions, snapdragons and orchids. The pansies sat in little seated rows like a choir and a red rose sat in front of them.

Suddenly, the leaves of the red rose moved, and the plant burst into life. "Now, now, it's time for rehearsals, darlings!" it said in a female voice, tapping with a conductor's baton on the floor.

The pansies rose, all yawning in synchronisation. "Aww, we wanna sleep!" they all replied in a childish tone.

"If you sleep, you don't get to sing!" the red rose slate, and once again tapped repeatedly on the floor. The pansies whined, and all brushed themselves off, then breathed in and began some vocal warm-ups. Meanwhile, Alex and Sora were watching this display with faces of utter shock. The flowers... were singing.

A purple snapdragon crossed its arms, looking over at them. "Good gracious me!" it harked, gesturing over to them. "Weeds!"

The dandelion frowned. "Oh, thank you very much, Madame," it growled in a light male tone.

"Now, calm down. Set your differences aside and let me see," said the red rose, and looked over to the two boys. "Come now, you can't go around calling every non-flowering plant a weed, dear."

Sora tipped his head. "Excuse me, but we're not weeds," he said. "We're looking for a girl - a girl called Alice. Did she come through here in the last hour or so?"

A white rose in the back, framed by cobwebs, raised her gentle head. This was surely the Naminé of the flower world, looking so pure. "Yes, Alice went through just a few minutes ago," she said. "She said she was running from some card guards." She angled her pretty petalled head. "I wonder if she ever did catch up to that rabbit. She said that was how she came here. Looking for a rabbit."

Alex jumped at the new information. "So that's how Alice came into the painting, right?" he wondered. "She was chasing a rabbit?" He walked over to the white rose. "Did you see in which direction Alice went?"

The flower pointed down a path, and Alex grabbed Sora's hand, tugging him down through the forest of lily pads. Purple, black and green assaulted their vision; they were the only colours in existence as everything around them began to blur.

Sora looked back at the road slipping away behind him, then tugged on Alex's sleeve. Alex looked back too, and slowed in the middle of the path. There was a shadow in the distance, of something large and flat. As it got nearer, they realised it was actually multiple flat objects. Panicking slightly, Alex kicked into a higher gear and pulled Sora onward, hoping to dear God that the approaching party weren't those whom he was thinking of.

After a few metres, the duo realised they weren't going fast enough to escape them, and slowed, looking for an escape route. There was a small door in a wall of grass and leaves. Sora immediately shot inside, and Alex was left to follow along this time.

They had walked into a garden. The brunet peered around. A long table was set up in the middle of the lawn, littered with virtually hundreds of tea sets upon the white cloth. There were assorted chairs for about twenty guests, of every shape and size. A large blue armchair stood at one end of the table while a smaller, ivory chair from a dining room set sat at the other. Sora was already looking at all of them, inspecting the chairs and looking at all the teapots, before he sat down in a decidedly soft green throne and picked up a tea cup.

He lifted the top off one and gasped. "Hey, Alex, come look here!" he cheered, and held up the pot to reveal a snoring dormouse, even tinier than a regular-sized fly. It was wearing a little round hat and a waistcoat. The little guy yawned, opening his eyes blearily to look up at them. "Hello," Sora said politely. "What's your name?"

The dormouse simply lifted its head and yawned. "_Twinkle, twinkle, little star_..." After a few seconds, the snuffling began again.

Alexander looked up at his friend. "Naminé's not good at making universes with helpful people, is she?" he asked, giving Sora a very pointed look.

Sora's hair bristled, and his eyes took on a menacing shimmer. "She didn't know she'd made this world," he said, his tone layered with carefully hidden threats. Alex backed up a little, away from his side of the party table. "Of course the people would not be very helpful; after all, she couldn't possibly be able to help shape the minds of those she doesn't know even exist. And you should never insult her for that."

"I didn't-"

"You might as well have," Sora growled, then looked around, suddenly seeming calmer and more childish. "I wonder... Alice in Wonderland - could there be a Cheshire Cat about the place, then?"

"Did somebody call for me?" said a scratchy voice, and both boys turned around to see what looked like a crescent moon floating in midair. Only after squinting did they see that, instead of being just one flat plane, the thing was actually constructed of many dozens of sharp spiking teeth. Two eyes opened up on top and, after a quick jump on Alex's part, a purple ribbon span out of nothing. It curled down and around an invisible shape in complex patterns; then finally a lavender body appeared under the folds, that of an overweight cat with a thick bushy tail, small ears, a wide face and a very wide grin, topped off by two close set yellow eyes and thick black eyebrows.

Alex and Sora stared still as the Cat disappeared. They stared at each other. Then Sora looked up, and pointed at something above Alex's head. He looked up. The Cat had replaced himself on Alex's head. So he didn't have a headache after all. "Excuse me?" he asked. "Could you sit somewhere... less annoying?"

The Cat's grin grew wider, if that was possible. "Why would I? You called for me, I believe I can sit anywhere in your presence," he said, then chuckled. "Or would you have me skinned for disobeying you?"

Alex crossed his arms. "Hah, hah, hah... _not_ funny." He cocked his head. "Are you insane?"

"If insane means mad, then I guess I am," the Cat replied. "Most everyone's mad around here these days."

Sora looked nervous. "Um... that doesn't sound right... Alex?" he asked. "Can we just go find Alice and get out of here?"

"Alice?" The Cat looked suddenly brighter. "Oh, that silly girl. She's gone to the Queen's Court today," he said. "Apparently the guards arrested her. Fancy, cheating in a game of croquet. We do teach the mallets the rules; how could she do so?"

Alex gave the Cat a strange look, then picked him up off his head (with difficulty, as he weighed quite a lot) and set him down on the floor. He then knelt down. "Can you point us the way?" he asked.

The Cat looked around, then nodded. "Just walk down the path. But be careful of the slithy toves. I hear they flock in the autumn." And he disappeared without a trace, this time not reappearing. The pair frowned at each other, before walking out into the lotus forest.

About half a kilometre down the road, they approached a large door in the middle of a hedge. A few strange people were gathered around a tree in the middle of a maze. They weren't human, that was for sure - because they were playing cards. They had they hands and feet in the corners and a head on the top that resembled either a Heart or a Spade. The Ten of Hearts was busy standing on a ladder, a paintbrush in his hand. The odd thing was that the tree bore roses - because that meant that it wasn't a tree, just a bush on a stick. The two ignored them as they passed through, looking about the maze.

"How will we complete the maze?" Sora asked, looking around. "Neither you nor us would be able to see over the top of the hedge on our own."

"And I doubt borrowing that step ladder would help us," Alex said, "as we'd still be standing at completely the wrong angle for us to tell the path out."

Sora tugged on his sleeve and pointed down the path. "Maybe we could..." A tiny white blur flew past. "...follow the white rabbit?"

Alex smirked. "Brilliant, Sora," he praised, and took the younger's hand, pulling him along.

The little white blur proved not to be so much of a little white blur after a while; they caught up to the rabbit. It was wearing a red waistcoat. At first they completely ignored this, but only when they saw the rabbit take a watch out of its pocket did Alex finally become sceptical about the whole ordeal.

"I'm late! I'm late! She'll have me on a plate!" the rabbit was crying hysterically, and he continued to hop madly down the track. Shrugging, Alexander and Sora followed anyway, dodging more of the strange anemone-like creatures. These must have been the slithy toves and, if not, then those creatures were yet to come.

As they reached the end of their journey through the hedge maze, they turned around for one second to look back at what they had just escaped. They wiped some sweat from their foreheads. It had been a long trek for such a small distance, like a maze usually was. There was no point to it all, just turning around and constantly bumping into dead ends and more paths and never quite knowing which way was north until you actually got out. But people must have found the first mazes fun and exciting. Just how long a man spent in a maze was to his digression, as well. You could make people laugh or worry within a few seconds' difference. Every second changed an emotion.

The castle itself was less of a castle and more of a prison. Guards, Hearts and Spades like the others, stood around multiple thorny portcullises around the front. The bricks were plain and dark, the colour of old, mouldy sandstone. A floor a bit like a chessboard in appearance was poking out from underneath, covered in muddy paw prints and scuffles. Cracks appeared every here and there. As he looked inside through one of the grates Alex could just spot what looked like an entrance hall decked out in gold, red, white and black, and beyond it a great courtroom. There was loud talking, although muffled by the distance, and a sudden loud thumping.

Alex and Sora looked at each other, confused and apprehensive, then did the first thing they could think of: they charged.

Smartly, one of the guards noticed, and pulled out a lance, charging back. Something in Sora's eyes flashed. For a second, caramel and denim was blinded from Alex's sight by blond and white. There was a sharp tearing sound, and as everything slowed, the Lockshield Wielder saw the damage for himself. The younger boy stood completely immobile, sword and baton drawn. There were shreds of paper lying on the floor.

A guard was dead at the ground, and all because of Sora.

The guards were actually quite easy to rip down. Considering that they were cards, it almost felt like they were murdering them when it turned out that Sora's wooden sword was actually sharp enough to stab through them. At least the boys now knew the point at which they had to stop, but Alex was still scared. Sora had stabbed through the paper man as soon as he had approached with his Heart-topped spear. The images were going to keep him up at night, that was for sure. After about five had been made unconscious in addition to the death, the others got the message and ran for it. Not into the castle, however, which startled Alex a little. Surely the guards should by trying to protect their King and Queen, if this Wonderland followed the general stereotype?

Of course, if this followed the general stereotype, then the Queen definitely did not need any protection.

They walked into the palace. Sora looked distant and Alex was instantly worried for him. There was something bothering his best friend and it had to be important if he was thinking about it at such a vital moment in their... 'mission'? It certainly felt like they had been sent here against their free will. And everything seemed so... planned.

There was definitely something going on, and he'd find out what.

They reached the doors to the court and hid on either side of the frame, peeking in at their target. A certain blonde girl in a blue frock and white apron was standing on a pedestal in the middle of a giant hall. To the sides were vast observer's stands filled with piles upon piles of strange creatures. A lot of the front row was built up of lizards with blackboards for writing their verdicts on. They must have been standing in for a more able jury. Either that or they _were_ the jury, in which case Alice would be doomed. They weren't even smart enough to hold their tongues in the presence of their own monarchy.

At the front of the courtroom stood a giant judge's box. The woman sitting in it was enormous with a very stern face. It seemed almost like an elephant had squeezed itself into a dress and thrown a hundred lemons down its own wide throat. The black-and-red gown she wore was very regal, and was covered in symbols of Hearts. Her black hair was drawn up into a tight bun behind a tiny gold crown and above a cartoonish face. A tiny man beside her sat down, looking skittish and wearing a crown. This was the King of Hearts. Which mean that the woman was the Queen.

Alex's ear began to itch, and he scratched at it while drawing back. The smart guards had not run in to announce their arrival, but there were still many standing with the woman, blocking Alice from escape. He looked over to where Sora had been standing.

'Had' being the key word of the sentence. He was _gone_. Alex wildly span around, then his eyes widened as a guard stepped out of the shadows. He summoned the Lockshield, eyes still shifting about looking for Sora. He couldn't disappear now...


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: Check the last few chapters. There was a real good disclaimer somewhere...

* * *

After a couple of moves of the Lockshield, Alex immediately fell backwards onto the hard floor. There was just something in the air. Without Sora there, he suddenly didn't feel much like fighting anybody at all. Without a second's notice he was slipped into a pair of rusty handcuffs. The lock on them was heart-shaped.

"We've caught a stray. Alert Her Majesty," cried one of the guards. Another nodded, and ran into the courtroom, shouting the news. There arose a hubbub from the jury and spectators at the court; he himself just managed to pick up a strangled whisper of "what!?" in a light voice. The people scrambled, or so it sounded, to a standing position. Feet clacked on the floor. There was a chink of metal on metal and Alex looked at the guards. They were bowing, spears crossed. The Spades were flat on the floor while the Hearts were kneeling over. It looked like some surreal kind of racism. Suitism. Something like that. How it worked with cards was a mystery.

The large woman entered the entrance hall, supposedly wishing to see what the problem was herself. Alex looked up at the Queen of Hearts. At closer distance, she looked even uglier. She had a horrible bulbous nose and black, soulless eyes. There was a rather male chin. He could pick out signs of a beard and close shaving - little specks of red and black. Everything was the same theme of colours, and Alex was so upset about his black shirt and shorts. He'd lost his originality. He blended into the background. Maybe that wasn't really very good at all.

His ear was crying out to be scratched again. He ignored it. There wasn't much he could do with his hands bound together, really. Besides, it would all be a matter of time before he left Wonderland.

"Well?" asked the Queen, and he snapped to attention. He was surprised the shoes clacking on the marble tiles hadn't sent him zonked yet. "Bow down to your Queen!"

"Sorry," he apologised, but not sorry at all, "err... _ma'am_, but I'm not from your kingdom, so forgive me if I don't find it right to bow to somebody who doesn't rule me."

The Queen inflated a little. "_Excuse me_!?" she said, incredulous. "You will apologise and you will bow, else it's off with your head!"

Alex's eyes widened. No wonder the other guards had ran. He bowed, although only hesitantly, and with his eyes closed.

"Thank you," the Queen said brusquely. She marched back into the courtroom with her entourage of guards, then turned at the door. "Bring him in. He can be our next case."

Alex was pushed roughly into the courtroom, next to Alice. Finally, he could see what details Naminé missed out. The frills on the apron, he noticed, were edged with detailed lace, designs he couldn't possibly pick out unless he was holding it in his hands. Her hair was thick and flowing, and shone like gold, whereas from outside Wonderland it was block-coloured and cell-shaded, and just a bright yellow. Also, now that he looked, the little black school-shoes were fastened with a silver square buckle. However, he was pushed back before he could capture any other sight of the girl.

The Queen had restated her position as judge. She thrust down the mallet loudly, and any talking and scuttling about from the lizard jurors was quickly silence.

"How does Miss Alice plead?" she said in her boastful voice.

"Please ma'am, not guilty!" Alice cried. "I've done nothing wrong!"

"Objection!" the Queen of Hearts yelled back herself. "You've wreaked havoc ever since the day you came to this world! You've distressed my poor trumpeter too many times for him to even speak anything but nonsense!" She pointed over to the rabbit, who was dressed in a bluish ruff, mumbling something about the time again. "You've caused chaos to the Dodo race and the Mad Hatter's tea party, and the Duchess's house is in ruins! Tweedledee and Tweedledum - why, they're never seen anymore! The flowers have complained many times about you and your drab petals-"

"Because I don't _have_ any petals!"

"Silence!" the Queen interjected, banging the mallet again. "I have not finished..."

Alex grumbled, and everybody turned to look at him. His eyes widened when he realised they were all waiting for him to speak. He laughed nervously. "Don't mind me," he said weakly, "I'm just here to watch, and then my case is up." The Queen glared, and even Alice crossed her arms, a little angry that he had disturbed them. "Um... I am truly sorry, your - your majesty," he said, and bowed.

The Queen sniffed. "I should think so," she snarled, and turned back to the case at hand. "Alice, you have been accused of turning the Caterpillar into a Butterfly, even!" she declared.

Alice was stumbling for answers. "That happens to all caterpillars at some time in their life-"

"Not if you're _that_ Caterpillar! And, the worst crime of all - you cheated playing against me in a game of croquet!"

"Call the croquet mallet to the stand, then, if you may!" Alice exclaimed in a defiant tone. The guards stepped aside from a group next to Alice to reveal the source of the problem. The croquet mallet was a bright orange flamingo.

"Did she cheat?" the Queen asked. The flamingo nodded quite happily. Alex grimaced. The poor creature must have been trained to do so.

Alice was still determined to prove her innocence. "Alright, call the croquet ball!" The cards pushed out a tiny hedgehog from the ranks. It was sky blue.

"Was she cheating?" The hedgehog shook its head, but swiftly changed its mind as a lance was pointed at its head. "Proof indeed, ignoring the fact that I was a witness, of course!" the Queen boomed. "And I saw her cheat myself!"

At this point, Alex sighed and summoned the Lockshield. Somebody in the audience shrieked, the Queen looked around and, seeing his weapon, every guard suddenly gathered around him with a neutral face. They didn't have to frown or anything; the spears said everything for them anyway.

The Queen was fuming. "Why have you drawn your weapon? Tell me!" she bellowed.

"This is a kangaroo court!" he argued. "You've already called Alice guilty without letting her speak!"

"The evidence spoke for itself! This is a fair court!"

"You were asking a _trained flamingo_ and a _hedgehog_ who was being threatened within an inch of his life!" Alex corrected. "Neither of which could speak English! That hardly sounds fair to me! You may be the Queen, but that doesn't give you the right to be so... so _mean_!" He crossed his arms. "Where is her lawyer?" The Queen was speechless. The guards approached him slowly, by silent urge of their sovereign, bearing their weapons a little more clearly. Shrugging out of boredom, Alex shifted into a more comfortable fighting stance. Simply standing straight up wasn't going to allow sudden dodges in case any of these guys got smart ideas. He was going to be better off closer to the ground.

At long last the obese woman found her tongue. "Well, I never!" She stood up. She was holding a small rod with a heart topper. Alex had just noticed it; all these little details weren't something he normally concentrated on, but his poor earlobe was on fire, and he had to ignore the pain somehow. "Guards, if you may."

Alex had only half a second or so to wonder what 'if you may' meant before one of the cards swung a lance over his head. He ducked to escape the blow - right into some black tape. He looked rather frustrated at the tape crossing his mouth, then up at the monarch, who simply frowned condescendingly upon him. Snarling like an injured fox, he sat cross-legged on the floor, leaning his head to the side and rubbing his ear on his own shoulder, trying to quell the irritation for just a few minutes while he swallowed himself up in his impression of bad language. Nothing had escaped that strict self-censor of his yet.

"Jury, hold up your notes," the Queen of Hearts asked the lizards, and they all held up their blackboards. Scrawled across were the queerest of messages. One had even thought to write a greeting to his mother. Alex shook his head, and received a soft knock to the skull. He brought both hands, still bound together, back over his head to rub the sore spot.

The Queen seemed to regard them with an amazingly strong sense of respect. "Yes, yes, yes..." She came across one board, upon which was scratched the 'not guilty' verdict. "Off with his head," she said simply. A few people out of Alex's watchmen walked over, picked the offending gecko out of his seat and took him away.

She surveyed the rest of them. "Anybody else who would like to defend her?" At once, everybody in court, bar Alex, Alice, the White Rabbit, the flamingo and the hedgehog, each shook their head. The White Rabbit was too shaky to say no, already keeping his wary eyes on the girl in the defendant's stand. "Thank you," the Queen said.

"Excuse me, darling," said a high-pitched voice, and all attention fell on the King. He was only about two (relative) feet tall. "Maybe he _was_ right. You should take every juror's opinion into account, dear."

The Queen smiled, something Alex's mind was going to reel for. "Of course," she said, a slightly dreamy voice taking her over, "but I'm afraid his sentence-" A loud swiping sound echoed from the corridor. "...was already carried out."

"I know you're a sweet thing, love," the King said in his quite relaxing tone, "and I know sometimes we have off days. Please just think before you come to any hurried conclusions, alright?"

"I will, indeed." Then the much more harsh tone came again. "But the trial still goes forth!"

"Don't forget, that young man will have to speak at his trial, and he may have some good points," her husband snuck in. She waved a hand, sighing, and the tape was removed from Alex's face. He nearly stood up, then remembered why he had needed to sit down and continued trying to scratch his ear with the seam on his shoulder.

"And now, we should continue," she said in a strained voice to the small man. He chickened out under his crown. She looked back up bossily at the rest of the room. "The court must come to order," she said. "Does Alice have any witnesses to request?"

The girl nodded. "I request the Hatter, please," she said. Without a moment's respite, a tall, gangly man with greyed hair and beard, in a mustard yellow coat and a green hat reading 'ten over eight inches', immediately walked into the room. He had jumpy, eccentric eyes, a broad smile and buck teeth. Alex was about to applaud Alice for a good choice in witness, when he suddenly remembered one thing - Victorian hatters worked themselves mad over fumes. In which case the Mad Hatter would probably not be a helpful man.

The man took the stand and looked over at Alice, then jumped about, blazing red with rage. The Queen took a double take.

"Good lord," she said. "Calm down!"

The man shrunk down and spoke. His voice was scratchy and hysterical. "I'm unbelievably sorry," he said. "By the way, allow me to congratulate you!"

The Queen grinned expectantly. "Whatever do you mean?" she asked.

"It's your unbirthday today, isn't it?" the Mad Hatter replied matter-of-factly.

This new information took the Queen by surprise. She clasped her hands to the side of her face. "Oh, yes, it is!" she exclaimed. "I cannot believe that I ever forgot! Thank you for reminding me, yes, it's something to celebrate indeed!"

A lizard in the jury stood up. "It's my unbirthday too!"

"And mine!"

"Me too!"

A sudden surge of speech started. Everybody was shaking hands with each other, congratulating them on their achievement, wishing them a well unbirthday and a good portion of a year to go until their birthday. Alex rolled his eyes and leaned back on the wooden box, forgotten in the excitement and confusion.

A purple mass formed next to him out of nothing. He jumped, and looked down at the Cheshire Cat.

"What's going on?" he asked. "Everybody's going on about their 'unbirthday', whatever that means."

The Cat smirked. "Of course they would," he said. "Today is everybody's unbirthday - well, except for those whose birthday it is, in which case a congratulations is given to them from the people in _your_ world. I do believe outsider's customs are like that, yes?"

Alex blinked. "You know I'm from another world?" he stuttered incredulously.

"It's a little obvious," the Cat answered, "for you not to come from here. Just look at you! I'm certain nobody wears their breeches as long as that!" He looked around, curious. "Where is your friend, hmm?"

Alex didn't answer. "I have to rescue Alice."

Vanishing from his previous spot next to Alex, the Cat returned sitting on Alex's head. He turned his head to a gap in the crowd. Alice was still standing in the defendant's box, fiddling with the hem of her apron in embarrassment. Clearly she didn't belong in Wonderland a second more, what with the chaos surrounding her at the moment. And nobody was paying attention to her, something she wasn't used to. "I don't see any problem with saving her now, she's in your sightline, young man. You could go right now."

"With handcuffs?" Alexander rejoined, holding up the offending wrists with a sour scowl on his face. "Right. How am I supposed to get rid of these?"

The Cat redirected his attention to the Queen, and the stick she held in her hand. Alex looked at the lock on the cuffs to the staff and back. To clarify on the earlier sentence, which described just the lock as being heart-shaped, it was the keyhole itself that held that shape. And the keyhole was just the right size for that heart topper. The Cat gave a simple smile, pushing himself forward to intrude on Alex's sight while upside down. Two paws clapped underneath his vision... wait, how on earth did they manage to get all the way down there?

"Couldn't I just get that with a Lockshield?" Alex asked.

"If you could somehow redirect the beam off a non-reflective surface - which, may I remind you, are the only surfaces in this world - then that makes it a more of a 'maybe' and less of a 'no' then you would like, I am sure," said the Cat, "but really, I find stealing a whole lot more entertaining than the easy way out."

Alex pouted, then stood up. Like it or not, this was his best chance of rescuing Alice. There was no-one looking out for either of them while the concept of unbirthdays still held them impossibly captivated. Sliding through the crowds, past the guards, he sneaked up to the Queen. She was focused upon her current audience of the March Hare, to whom she was chatting away idly. He grinned, then pinched the stick straight out of her hands. Next, he got down low, and crept along the floor with the air of a pouncing lion, stopping only to stand next to Alice.

"Thank goodness," she said. "I was keeping my eyes on you."

"Yeah, well, be careful and keep your voice down," Alex muttered, still a little miffed and sarcastic from having tape on his face. He fiddled with the staff, before getting an idea. He pulled the heart off the end and inserted it into the lock. The padlock clicked, and the handcuffs fell off. Alex brandished the Lockshield proudly once more.

Alice was intrigued, to say the least. "What would that be?" she asked.

"It's a way to get out of here," Alex replied. "Now come on; in a room of this many people, one of them is bound to be having a birthday."

"And what would that cause?"

"Unwanted attention," he said simply, grabbing Alice's hand. "Come on..." He steered her through a group of cards, lizards, rabbits, a tall dodo in a suit and something akin to a giant pink caterpillar, with two odd wings on its back - or maybe it was; it was hard to tell from the billowing purple smoke around its face, emitting from a large hookah. They both coughed quietly as they reached the door.

Alone, sitting in a chair on the edge of the hall with a little conical hat upon his head, a guard stood, looking into the room. How he longed for it to be his unbirthday! Then he could fit into the crowd. Unfortunately for him, this day was the day of his birthday. And the world was spinning around and around and nobody noticed. He'd had to try and get himself noticed the old way: word of mouth and waiting. But when he'd thought to tell his comrades, they had been smiling, and quite glad quite quickly.  
Glad enough to kick him out of the room and tell him to guard the rest of the palace while everybody else celebrated.

His eyes widened as he saw the boy and the girl, both suspects from court cases, escaping the swarms of happy people. He gasped, amazed, then rang a small bell above his head.  
Alex and Alice's vision snapped over to the man, and they paled. "Darn!" Alex spat out, and held up the Lockshield. Many of the guards and the Queen of Hearts rushed out of the room, confused. Then the Queen spotted them standing in the middle of the checkered floor, the male with a weapon above his head. Alex backed up in front of Alice nervously, not wanting to trigger anything unwanted.

Suddenly the charge stopped. "Don't hurt us!" the Queen pleaded. "Otherwise you'll have more to weigh you down when the death penalty is decided!"

"_Death penalty_!?" Alex cried out. "This really _is_ a kangaroo court!"

"Off with their heads!" the Queen bawled, and the entire army of guards, including the one whose birthday it was, marched ahead with their lances raised.

Alex panicked, raised the Lockshield again, and yelled, "Unlock!" A huge black portal opened up, time and scenes that could have been rippling along the outside and distorting the air surrounding it. Threads of darkness that looked something like trailing ribbons in the air littered the frame. Just beyond Alex could see a tunnel of sheer black and, past that, a hole leading to a grey low-lit room and a canvas showing a skyscape.

Without a second thought, Alex gripped on Alice's wrists. She stared at him. "Into _there_!?" she mouthed.

Alex nodded, and pulled her into the portal, it closing behind them.

KHKHKH

In Naminé's room, a portal opened up out of a painting. Dropping out were a girl with golden hair and a boy who had bitten off way more than he was able to chew. They landed softly on the floor, and the girl stumbled. Alex caught her and righted her a little, smiling.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Sure," she said, then looked over his shoulder at somebody. "Hello?"

Look what he had done, Mr Damashii. You just wanted him to find a way to link the Heartless to the painting; instead he had managed to rescue a girl's life and take her from it.

"Sora?" said Mr Damashii, and Alex's friend stepped out of the shadows. He had a strange look on his face. Alex only saw hate in his eyes as everything turned black.


	20. Chapter 20

**HB's note: The disclaimer is a few chapters back. Read it. I own nothing that isn't mine. And Umi's note below is right. If you like this, REVIEW!**

**Umi's note:Nobody's reading this... but I post anyway! And **_**that**_** is the true meaning of perseverance!**

"Congratulations, Mr Nomura," said Mr Damashii, "Sora."

Sora's face didn't change. He sat down next to Alex and propped up the body on his arm. He seemed to be swallowed in some thought. Then he looked up at Alice, who was immobilised in fear. "Madam Alice?" he said, his voice as polite as he could keep it. "We'd like it if you remained calm."

Alice squirmed under the pressure. Sora sighed, and looked up at Mr Damashii. "Can you explain it to her, please?" he said, his voice low as he mindlessly held Alex a bit slack. The brunet's head was lolling to the side, eyes closed in some pain.

"You can do it yourself, remember?" Mr Damashii replied.

"Right." Sora frowned, then returned his gaze to the blonde girl. "A Princess of Heart cannot say no nor do anything that is synonymous with saying no to people with good intentions in their heart," he mumbled. "You, Alice - you are a Princess of Heart. You cannot say no to those who do not want to cause any trouble. And we're telling you - we don't."

"I think you _are_ causing trouble!" Alice cried in defiance. "Look at what you've done to him!"

"Alice, we don't want you to get hurt." He stood up, picking up his friend bridal style, after some hesitation. "The laws of the Faction decree that when a hostage is non-compliant, the kidnapper has the right and the obligation to injure them in order to silence and subdue. To quote directly-" He pulled a piece of paper from the pocket of his denim jacket. "'If the subject fails to respond, use aggression to liberate his - or her - true disposition'. We don't want to hurt you, none of us want to hurt you... but if you do say no to us because of what your mind is telling your pure heart, I will be forced to."

Alice pouted. "Of course you'd say that. Then you'd hurt me anyway."

"We wouldn't hurt anything of Naminé's!" Sora cried, before he could stop himself. "Why should you be any different? You were her friend for two whole years!"

The girl shuddered. "So she's the one who made that Wonderland. I guess I'd have to thank her - she staved you off for two years!"

Sora stopped. "Kairi! Naminé!" he yelled. The second blonde stepped out from behind a huge portrait propped up against the wall. Alice put her hands up to her mouth, horrified, as Kairi came out with her, dressed in a strange white and grey coat with something vaguely resembling an apron over the top, and a white dress. It was decorated with a pattern similar to - wait, the same as - the French national flag. Stripes of blue, white and red. She was carrying a small burlap sack slung over one shoulder, which made her look remarkably like a burglar.

"Kairi is the whole reason that Mr Damashii is here now," Sora said, averting his eyes from the angel. If he looked, it'd happen again. "She was here by chance and, when we came, remembered that this had been planned about a week ago. She captured our friend Hawk and went to him. He sent us here in the first place, to watch over Alex as he looked for you. When he found you in the courtroom... I had to leave and inform Mr Damashii that he'd made it. Kairi, however, had already brought him over." The caramel boy bowed his head. "You'd be in worse condition if we hadn't gotten here so soon. Look at your dress."

Alice did and shrieked. The edges were... dripping away. She rubbed her finger against the hem. No, this wasn't possible... she was _dripping paint_.

"If I had tried to bring Mr Damashii over without Kairi having already done so, you'd be a puddle on the floor," the boy continued, not lifting his head away. "We can stabilise your condition on our Gummi Ship. We've never planned to hurt anybody. We just want to be whole again."

Alice stuttered away, then finally sighed. "Alright, I'll come," she said, no longer sounding so haughty. "But if you hurt Alex or Naminé, you can just say goodbye to your Princess of Heart."

KHKHKH

Mr Damashii sat in the driver's seat of the ship. It was a Class C transport ship they'd stolen from some merchants a few years back. They'd had to change the license readings at the old Midgarian energy plant and paint it a different colour at some place called the Balamb Garden. It was now pure white, with a pale blue heart insignia on the side of the Firaga thrusters at the back. Mr Damashii himself was dressed in the Faction uniform for me, somewhat like Kairi's, but with trousers instead of a skirt. The difference was that instead of the French flag on the apron-like chest cover, he wore the Brazilian flag instead: a globe on a yellow strip over a green field. If it weren't for the fruity colours he would have looked just like a mad scientist!

There were a few asteroids ahead, and he swerved gently to avoid them. The ship's cargo hold was ravaged by the turbulence. Kairi poked her head through the door.

"What's going on?" she enquired.

"I misjudged the asteroid belt's gravitational pull, nothing more," Mr Damashii answered. Already they were thundering away from the strange green rock. "I've never really understood Earth's surroundings. It's all weird!" The redhead nodded, then closed the door to the cargo hold. Mr Damashii smiled. It was nice to get a ride like this; Interspace was the clearest it had been all weak. Just a few hours ago there had been rocks all over the place.

He looked over at his co-pilot Sora. He was looking distantly out of the window. He wasn't wearing his uniform, which angered Mr Damashii a little; he'd have to pull it on at some point of the trip. You never stepped into the Faction's hideout without wearing the correct uniform. "What's wrong, Sora?"

"Everything," Sora mumbled. "Everything is wrong. We can't be proud of what we are. We were sworn to secrecy so fast... we couldn't even trust our best friend with the truth about us. The only person who knows what we are _truly_ is you."

"Too true, too true," the blue-haired teacher agreed.

"And now, we hurt our best friend too." Sora laid his head back on the chair. "We shouldn't have been able to do such a thing, Mr Damashii. We didn't ever want anybody to lay a harmful finger on him and now we have to be involved in his kidnap. Syaoran's going to include us in the torture sessions, we can foresee that. We don't need to be Cassandra to be able to say that. He knows we're friends and he's just using that to his advantage."

Mr Damashii took on a stern face. "He's the target, Sora. He's been the target for as long as the Faction existed, for as long as anybody knew he was the grandson of Sephiros. It's just co-incidence that you were his friend."

Sora scoffed. "Right." His voice was cold, but confessing. He adjusted himself in his seat, trying to make himself more comfortable. Mr Damashii sighed and punched in an altered course, knowing what was about to happen. The sound of the ship's engines became downplayed as the power sent to them was cut in half. A green dial on the dashboard dimmed, the numbers on it no longer important while they were cruising. The warning lights would come on if there were any ships ahead, behind or alongside them, but he was sure the Heartless wouldn't attack a simple cargo ship. Well, until they scanned it, in which case the alarms would sound and they would be off faster than you could say 'Weapons Alert'.

He turned around in his driver's seat and face Sora. "Tell me what happened."

"Alex has the Lockshield because of what happened to me." Sora shook his head. "It's too complicated. We shouldn't even be speaking of it. There are two of us, not one of us. That's how it's been for ever so long..."

"No, go on," Mr Damashii encouraged. "This is the first time you've only ever referred to yourself since I met you. That's incredible. Start talking of only yourself. Before all of this."

Sora glared. "...okay," he conceded. "It was nine years ago. Me and Alex... I lived underneath him in that apartment building. We were the best friends you ever did see. We were like a kitten and a puppy. If you can picture me as a cat and Alex as a dog, that is. We'd even fall asleep on each other." He smiled. "I was _so_ happy." Mr Damashii smiled approvingly. "At the time, I had no idea of what Alex was going to become. I just... liked him for who he was.

"But then... one day, in the middle of the street... we were playing conkers, the old-fashioned way. With shells." Sora relaxed in his seat. "Okay, so they were sea shells instead of snail shells. My mom kept a big collection of sea shells from her travels across the world. The ones we were playing with were found in the rocks on a Hollywood beach. God, there's so much I can remember about that day, it's like no time has passed and I'm still caught up in that moment..."

"Just keep to what happened with you and your friend, then," Mr Damashii asked.

Sora's hair drooped, and so did the rest of him. "It was getting dark, but we wanted to stay out. But then... there were Heartless, and they came and tried to get at Alex..."

KHKHKH

The man held up the vial in his hand, looking into it deeply. "Well, we've certainly done enough work on this, Mr Akiyama," he said.

"Yes, headmaster, sir," Akiyama was holding a shoebox still beneath his arm. There was something thrashing about in there. "But we need to push just a little harder. In fact..." He looked into the canister holding the live crystal heart, "if we could witness a heart being taken with our own eyes rather than just looking at the results, then we'd be able to know exactly what was going on. It could either that we were right all along, or that all our previous teachings could blow up in our faces."

"Perhaps it could," the headmaster answered, raising an eyebrow. "Mr Akiyama, what have you got in there?"

"It's a dog," Akiyama replied, and lifted the lid. A loud bark emitted from the space inside. "Now, I know what you're going to say, but..."

The headmaster's face contracted into severity. "But?"

Akiyama cowered, unusual for somebody of his strength and attitude. "...but I had to steal the thing just to get it over here today. I didn't have the money to buy one and I spotted him looking all forlorn in a window and... And I was just kinda desperate for a guinea pig and all. Besides, he came from a huge litter, one that was definitely too much for the mommy. That's the reason I messed up one of the questions on my exam. I was trying to quell the dog with some bacon I bought in the cafeteria."

The headmaster rubbed his temples unsurely. "Mr Akiyama..." he sighed. "The darkness still haunts your heart."

"There was a very mean lady there! Besides, it's not like you're gonna miss one puppy out of a hundred," Akiyama debated. "I had to recount about eighty times. I came in ten minutes later than normal, just from _counting_ the dogs!" He lifted out a Dalmatian puppy gingerly onto the table. "And it's all in the name of science. Besides, if we just return the heart afterwards-"

"You do know that's not just a dark action, that's just completely unethical, right?" the headmaster scolded him. "We would need to watch the transformation into a Heartless."

Akiyama's gaze grew dark. "That's clearly not what happened to Erica Karsath, is it?"

"Erica? You mean, Alexander Karsath's younger sister?"

"I gave her parents a phone call," Akiyama replied, nodding. "Yeah, as expected Aeris and Cloud _weren't_ happy but Sephiros and Erica both are supportive. Sephiros is bringing Erica here as we speak."

The headmaster considered the options. On one hand, this could all become a shambles and he'd lose both his job and his reputation. On the other hand, this could be just the breakthrough he had been waiting for. He heaved a few breaths of concern. "You do understand the complications of all of this, I hope," he told Akiyama. "We may lose the kind opinions of the Karsath family. Possibly more families, if word ever spreads about this. At the least we'll have a very angry mother upon our proverbial tails. Have you any idea what it is like to physically run away from a woman who is emotionally weaker than you while your limbs are only half as nimble as they were?"

Akiyama was still. "In all honesty, sir, I probably shouldn't laugh at the image in my head right now, but I have little choice." He then proceeded to break down and roll up in the isles. The headmaster rolled his eyes.

KHKHKH

Sora was silent as he finished his story, awaiting the reaction of Mr Damashii. There was a few seconds where all was quiet, and they could overhear the talk in the cargo hold.

"Cool it, Princess," Kairi was saying. "I know you're unhappy being here, but it's all for a good cause."

A sharp, accented voice answered her. "What could be so good that you knock a poor boy unconscious like that? Not to mention holding us two hostage with nobody coming to help us!"

"The Faction is going to help you," Kairi replied. "Besides, it's all for my friend. He lost somebody close to him recently. We're working towards a goal that I know will help bring her back."

A third, quieter person joined the conversation. "But to force Sora to do that to his best friend... was that really the right thing to do? Is it really for such a good, good cause that it involves hurting people? No... I don't call that good. I don't call that good at all." There was a pause. "Not even my abilities could erase all of that pain from somebody's mind. If I were to try, it'd just hit back."

Sora's eyes began to form tears. "Naminé's right, she's so right..." he sobbed, and fell forward in his seat, resting on the dashboard.

Mr Damashii looked on, worried, then keyed in a few new commands. A hologram appeared on the viewing window. He altered a few of his key signals in order to trick other ship's radars, then placed his head in his hands. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe he should have thought the whole thing through a little more clearly, instead of having made Sora go along. He probably wouldn't feel so bad if it hadn't been him who had knocked out Alexander, if he didn't have to carry the guilt around.

But there was also what would have run through the young boy's head if he had erased Sora from the plan. Maybe Sora would get angry that he wasn't being allowed to come, and demand that he be the one to knock Alex out instead of having a stranger do it. There was also the possibly that the kid would also feel weak and untrustworthy if he had done that. Syaoran needed everybody to be good and happy. If they weren't, the entire thing would fail. And Sora was on the short side. It may have been that a dormant height complex existed within him; and that was something he really didn't want to trigger. A Sock 'Em Bopper to the face was a _very_ unpleasant injury, foam or no foam.

There was a sudden stirring noise, and Sora shot up. Alex was rolling about on the floor, mumbling. He was waking up. Sora left his seat and knelt beside him.

KHKHKH

Who was that, staring at him...? That blurry face... those eyes, those blue eyes...

...blue? "Sora?" he asked. He could hardly hear his own voice, it was too quiet. Everything was so quiet...

"It's not time to wake up yet, Alex."

That voice was so calm, so sweet... he recognised it. It echoed through his mind. There was something wrong. He couldn't be alive - at least, it didn't feel like he was. "Am I dead?"

KHKHKH

Sora bit his lip. "No," he said finally. "You're not dead. It's not your time anyway. Then again, it's wasn't ours either."

The sleepy Alex seemed to have a small smile on his face. "Wouldn't mind... dead..." he said incoherently.

"We think you should mind if you were dead," Sora said to the boy half-asleep on the floor. "Both of us... both of us think so. You should too."

Alex closed his eyes. "Heaven?" he asked.

Sora's eyes widened and he began fiddling with the bottom of his shirt. "Um... what?" he asked, trying to look innocent while wearing a bright red flush. Mr Damashii stifled a few chuckles of his own.

"M'dead..." the brunet replied, clearly not thinking right about anything in his clear state of unconsciousness. "S'where's... heaven?"

Sora sighed in relief and took off his jacket. He folded it up and placed it underneath Alex's head. "Just get to sleep, Alex," he said. "Heaven could come someday. It's not here now, but it'll be here someday." The boy smiled at him. Alex's lip twitched back, and he rolled over a little, beginning to hug the floor a little. He was finally going back to sleep. Sora sighed deeply, then got back up and sat in his seat. Mr Damashii was smirking broadly at him.

He growled at him. "_What_!?"

Mr Damashii continued to beam at him. "That was so adorable I could eat my hat if I was wearing one!" he began to laugh.

KHKHKH

And with that, Alex floated into the darkness again. Joumae sat next to him, watching him drift about.

_Welcome to my life,_ Joumae complained. _This has happened to me about six times, all more unpleasant than the last._

"I'm quite sure," Alex said, his mind elsewhere. "Was that Sora I was looking at... or somebody else?"

_I'm not sure._ Joumae looked over his shoulder at the blur that was the 'Station'. The picture on it was still hard to make out. _But I know we've gotten into a right mess, Alexander. We should be careful. Our next move could end up being our last._


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: The usual.

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"Wakey, wakey, little guy! Come on! ...This is boring." This voice... 'Nasally' was the word that sprung to mind. And annoying.

"Is it? I thought you said you could concentrate!" Much deeper, this one. And suave-sounding.

To be honest, Alexander Karsath wouldn't be surprised at all about where he had ended up. Hey, he'd just been kidnapped. The whole point of it all was that he had been taken to some strange place. If he'd been fully awake, however, he'd be able to make some criticisms about where he was. A kidnapper or guard who wasn't interested in his charge was not something he thought should be allowed in any mysterious terrorist organisations (they sounded very much like terrorists to him). And the second one, the suave-sounding man-

-he sounded exactly like Joumae. Just brilliant.

"Oh, go make out with a coal fire."

"Right! And who do _you_ have, Demyx?"

"Put a sock in it, you too." A third voice. It sounded so familiar: that bored tone, the pure seriousness. In fact, he was so sure he'd heard that voice just earlier today. "If you make one false move, I'm sure Mr Karsath hear will wake up and beat you two to death." Mr? "What are you, fire and water?"

"Yes!" the other two voices sang together.

"Come on, Zexion!" said that nasally voice, and the name Zexion began to strike a chord. Alex's brain began to buzz as he matched voices and names to faces. The nasally-voiced person and the suave man definitely were not on his list. He'd never heard of a Demyx before, either, not even from any obscure books or anything that he'd read when he was three. But the third person and the name Zexion certainly rang a few bells, and he struggled to try and think of any faces. No mental image formed. Then came the sudden realisation. He only knew one person who was young enough to have that voice and who commonly called him 'Mr' Karsath.

It was Mr Ishioka.

Within a second, Alex shot up, eyes wide open. He looked around. He was leaning against a panelled white wall, with pale and plastic shapes covering the surface. In fact, it looked a lot like the designs of the gymnasium back at school. He racked his brain for anything else that could possibly help him. However, the only thing he knew was that while he had been asleep there had been a strange, deep rumbling noise. That, and his head had hurt for the first half or so of the journey. Then everything had gone soft and... He reached behind him vaguely. From underneath his back he pulled out a small denim jacket.

His head shot up. "_Sora_!?"

"Cool down," said that first voice again, and Alex looked over to a man in his very late teens. He had a tall, chestnut blond mohawk and rather spidery tufts of hair falling from his forehead. He seemed pretty young for work in any field. Sitting next to him was another man, this one with hair like a hedgehog. It sprung up in all directions, two cowlicks at the front. Whereas the blond had a quite wiry frame, the redhead was like a stick insect. To be realistic, the older man's form was strange to him, with a tiny waist and rather wide hips - although that could have just been the effect of the strange coat that they were both wearing. And with them, in the same white uniform, was Mr Ishioka.

Alex rose to his feet astatically, studying his surroundings. The walls and floor all had the same basic decoration. Perspex panels upon pale grey or white backgrounds. There were no lights, so things were quite hard to make out, but everything was basically the same. He seemed to be in some kind of holding cell. At one end the wall was knocked away to reveal a huge set of prison bars spanning the entire side. He walked up the side. As he looked out, he noticed how the cell was raised from the main white floor.

He gripped one of the bars, looking around. The rest of the world was just white. Other than some blue lines on the floor, that was pretty much it.

He sat down on the edge, staring intently at Mr Ishioka. The teacher looked away.

Alex sighed. "Why are you doing this?" he asked.

Mr Ishioka turned around. He was wearing some kind of apron that fell from his shoulders and covered most of his torso. It had the Argentinean flag on. "Because everybody has a dream," he replied. "Even those two knuckleheads there."

Demyx, the mohawked man, and the other man both took offence. "That's just plain rude!" Demyx groaned.

"Damn you two," Mr Ishioka yawned back, and pulled out _The Art Of War_. "I could re-enact for you a single technique noted in this book. One movement and you'd be dead on the floor. Why do you think I don't do that?" He turned to the redheaded man. "Axel?"

Axel shrugged. "You never struck me as someone who didn't want to get on Syaoran's bad side," he answered. "But I guess you don't try to get me because of that good old moral: you mess with fire..." he licked his own finger, used it to touch his shoulder, and then removed it with a hissing noise. "Burn, man," he completed, giving a thumbs down.

There came the sound of footsteps and, suddenly, all three men stood attention. Coming through the door were a group of men: the first with pale blond hair; another who was white-haired and intimidating; a shorter white-hair that looked remarkably like Hawk; a tall, Arabian man with tilting eyes. Then there was a lady with black skin and no mouth. After them were some he recognised: Mr Nozue; Ms Ito, the mechanic; the boy from school who looked like Sorin (he knew he was evil!). The final flourish was Kairi herself, walking through the door with a blond boy only Alex's age, maybe younger. He seemed familiar somehow, but his head was bowed.

As soon as Axel noticed that whoever he was looking for was not there, all three of Alex's guards heaved a great sigh of relief.

The pale-haired man stepped forward first. He looked so much like a vampire it was unbearable. His pale skin and high cheekbones were going to haunt Alex as much as his huge acid green eyes. His flag was from China. "So this would be the boy, hmm?" He had a crackling tone. He studied the brunet in the cell for a few moments, measuring him mentally. Then he grabbed his hand, making the boy jump. After a few seconds, he was done. "I'll be looking forward to the genetic testing. He seems certainly fine on the outside."

Ms Ito rolled up her sleeves. She was wearing Scotland. "He won't be for long!"

Mr Ishioka leaned back to Alex. "Be careful with Larxene," he whispered. "She likes electrocuting people." Alex gulped.

Leaning about the back, the white-haired Hawk look-alike smirked, crossing his arms. For some reason he had a Welsh flag on his coat. "You have Hawk somewhere, don't you?" he asked Mr Ishioka, and the mop-haired teacher raised his arm lazily. Kairi held up a sack and opened the top. The tiny Hawk flew out, a disgruntled look on his face. The white-haired clone burst out laughing.

Hawk looked around at everybody, then back at the white-haired teenager. Suddenly, all emotions inside the boy appeared to flare up, and he shot straight for him. "Xawkh!" Without a moment's notice, the other white-hair clicked his fingers. Dark bonds formed around his body. Alex leapt to his feet, eyes wide. He hadn't realised Hawk had disappeared at all back at the art studio - he'd been helping Alice stay standing up. "Hey, what the-" the black-haired boy screamed. Another dark tendril burrowed its way into the back of his head, and his eyes blanked out completely. Alex and the rest of the room were left looking at a tiny, mindless sprite.

Xawkh walked around Hawk for a little, then grabbed the boy out of the air and stuffed him into a side pocket. He didn't even notice a thing. "The little original is now really the _little_ original, hmm?" he joked to himself, and surveyed the people in the holding bay. "We should all be at our posts when the boss comes in. I suggest we leave now."

"Leave?" said the small blond boy, and Alex tried to get a good look at his face. "Why? We've been working around the clock trying to stabilise the Princesses' conditions. Now that we have them safe, why can't we take a break?"

"Roxas, Roxas, Roxas," Xawkh sighed, and walked up to the boy. "You, Mozenrath, Hall, Sarah-"

"Kat."

"...Kat, then - Marluxia and Kairi have no reason to be here. Vexen's here to study Alex. Larxene's here to torture him, me and Hikari over there too. And Zexion makes sure he doesn't get out. Demyx and Axel are expendable, now that I think about it."

After a few mixed arguments from the comic relief, Roxas sighed. "Yes, Xawkh." He turned around. "I'll go find that palm tree, then, shall I?"

Alex mumbled under his breath, "Palm tree..."

Xawkh nodded, quite pleased that he'd gotten his point across. "Thank you," he said, and he and Hikari, the Sorin look-alike, began to clear the others out. A few of them grumbled angrily. "By the way," he said, "look for the little guy. I think his name was Sora, right? Joined about the same time you did."

Alex freaked. "_Sora_!? Where's Sora? And Naminé! And Alice, too!" He gripped the bars so tight he swore they were bending under the extreme pressure. "Tell me where!"

The blond didn't look up. "...I don't know where Sora is. Naminé has her own room and Alice is with the Princesses. We're avelliating her condition." His answer was tight and scripted. It was as if they knew Alex was triggered by Sora's name. Alex gave him a pointed growl, but he didn't look up, and soon he turned away and ran.

Ms Ito turned around and looked at the prisoner with a dangerous glint in her bright eyes. Mr Ishioka walked off to the side. There was a series of beeps; if Alex had the time for any offhand thoughts, then he'd reckon that he must have been using some kind of electronic keyboard to type in instructions. However, thoughts were not on the agenda right now. The biggest problem for him was: what the hell were they about to do to him.

The bars slid aside, and Alex backed up into the wall. To try and face off against them would be a mistake, especially when he was only aware of one of the group's powers. The only woman of the quartet stepped into the cell, and held up her hands. In-between the fingers were eight small yellow daggers. Without a second's hesitation, her second foot came down on the platform. At the exact same time, all eight knives found their way through the air and shared themselves among Alex's arms and legs. The pain was intense; already his vision was blurring. Vexen wandered over with some portable medical scanners and set up receptive patches on his arm and neck.

Then Ms Ito waved her arm. Hikari and Xawkh readied themselves.

Alex screamed. It was the only thing his lungs could allow. It was the only thing his mind could allow. There was a series of kunai blades wedged in his limbs with a powerful electric shock travelling through them and a trio of katana were ripping straight through him; he was millions of miles away from home; he was kidnapped and being tortured without explanation; his best friend was part of an evil gang, the very gang that was kidnapping him; Hawk was currently having his mind wiped clean by darkness; the girl he had just saved from the middle of a painting was in emergency care; his sister was alone at home. He couldn't think and he couldn't breathe, and all he could do was scream from the pain.

"Chicken!" Ms Ito cackled. "That was pathetic!" Hikari and Xawkh agreed.

Vexen checked his pulse rate. "He doesn't seem to have much defence against Thunder-element magic. This is strange; most people we have captured have a honed resistance to magic, whether they wear protective armour or not."

Alex finally found enough of a voice to be able to say something. "What, you've seen an Earth creature that _needs_ to defend against electricity?" he rasped.

Vexen laughed in a hollow voice. "Of course not. But Earth humans do know how to use elemental magic to defend them, right?"

"Vexen, you know full well... only the hume outside the isolated world of Earth understand magic, and take the elements to be fire, earth, water, wind, thunder, ice, light and darkness," came a voice, and everybody stepped away. Outside the cell, Zexion stepped aside in an aloof fashion, to reveal a vaguely familiar face. Alex, still writhing from the enchanted kunai, had to think about the face. Then it struck him; the newcomer looked almost exactly like him. He had denim blue hair, and one brown eye, with the other socket hidden behind a leather eye patch. He was wearing the gang's weird uniform, only his apron showed the Irish flag. The identity came down on him like a ton of bricks. It was the boy who had stolen Sora's necklace back last month.

The boy gave a cruel smile. "Hello, then, Alexander!" he said condescendingly, kneeling down next to him. Alex had have a mind to sock him in the face. He raised his fist, but it was held. Ms Ito refrained from attacking again; after all, their strange colleague would also be injured if they tried. "Isn't that just cute? He's mad at me."

"Who... are you?" Alex hissed.

"Syaoran. Why else does everybody seem to hold me with high regard?" The blue-haired boy pulled his chin up. "And I guess you're our little Lockshield Wielder. Heard you were having some... trouble with your inner darkness. Something we could fix."

Alex smirked. "I'm trusting Joumae a lot more than I'm trusting you right about now," he said, grinning with hysterics.

"Aww, his spunk!" Syaoran sighed caustically. "And his naiveté. Did you get all that down, Vexen?" The blond nodded, returning to his analysis. "I don't think you quite realise your problem. Joumae is much worse than what you think. He's poisoned your heart. He poisoned the heart of the Karsath family for generations, living off their blood in the hopes that one day, he would be awake for enough time to destroy a soul and take his own body."

Alex flexed his fingers, then tried to push himself a little further up. Pain burned through his nervous system straight from the sword wounds, making him stop moving. Syaoran was still wearing a quite goofy smirk as he hesitated, then tried again. He set his head back against the wall, breathing loud and hard. "A vampire, then?"

Syaoran was, for once, out of answers. "What?"

"Lives off the blood of the Karsaths," Alex repeated. "Sounds like he's a vampire."

"Hmm. I like that description. Joumae the _vampire_." He pushed up from the ground. "He'll be eating away at you, Alexander."

"Why are you warning me of this, then?" Alex asked. "And why'd you get Larxene here to electrocute me?"

"There are very few ways to speak to the disbelievers," Syaoran noted. "You, for example - I doubt you'd really take the holy heart seriously, right?" Alex stayed quiet. "The holy heart: the Kingdom Hearts. It powers the light and darkness in the universe. All power is subject to the Kingdom Hearts. They say within lies darkness. Well, we're not after darkness. Behind it, there's true light." Syaoran looked up, almost as if he could see something through the ceiling. "The seven Princesses of Heart are the seven maidens of purest heart. They can open the doorway with the Keyblade, and then we can finally purge this universe of the darkness."

Xawkh and Hikari blanched. Not the speeches again... Xawkh decided a distraction would stop Syaoran from revealing the entire plan, and held up Hawk from his pocket. "Oh, the darkness is useful too, right?" he said. "The power to control and to silence has its uses."

"True, but when the darkness consumes your heart, try using that power," Syaoran noted. "You'll be so deep in you can't even think about pulling yourself out. This is what the Heartless are. They're puppets of the darkness. The tools of all the worlds' evil. And one touch from their black claws and you become one of them yourself."

Alex rolled his eyes at all the talking. To be honest, it was exactly what the headmaster and his grandfather had told him. He didn't want to know any more about the Heartless-

Now it flashed into his mind. A memory of weeks ago, when he had first met Umi no Shirube. She'd been talking about a strange group, and disguising herself as a palm tree, and some boy who looked like him... they'd been talking about Nobodies? "What's a Nobody?" he asked out loud.

Syaoran turned around to look at him. "Not even the great Ansem the Wise told you?" He threw his head back in laughter. "Oh, wait! He doesn't know, does he?" Syaoran held up his arm and ripped off one of his strange, scoop-like hand coverings. There was a digital watch of some kind underneath. He pressed a button, and a holographic set of numbers lit up a few centimetres from the main projector. Alex couldn't read it from where he was sitting. "I'm sure he'll be discovering the answer soon. I hope he has done already, in fact. Give it about a minute and his prize specimen will disappear in front of his eyes. Good ole Green-Eyed Monster will have struck again. He's so good at his job."

"_What_ is a Nobody?" Alex asked again. "God, never thought the bad guy would be deaf."

Syaoran turned around. "That was the wrong thing to say. I wanted to spare you, Alexander. We've got a deep connection, one you don't even realise is there. I wanted to save your life and kill Joumae." He pulled the covering on again. "Guess you're too connected to him. Do you want the _big, bad mastermind_ to put you down?"

Alex was seriously regretting everything he'd just done. At the same time, he didn't care. "I'm sure it's better than having you breathe down my neck for the rest of my days of captivity," he said, then stopped himself.

Syaoran placed his hand to his throat. "Wrong answer."

"Wait!" Roxas rushed through the doors. "Don't kill him!"

"Why?" Syaoran asked, his visible eye piercing straight into the blond boy's mind.

"Because we need him, for the Kingdom Hearts, right?" Roxas pointed out. "If we don't have him, we have no Karsath blood and so we have no way of opening the Kingdom Hearts. The Princesses cannot work without the blood of a Keybearer."

Syaoran was silent in thought for some moments, then nodded. He and the henchmen left. Roxas gave one soft look at Alex, before walking away.


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: The usual, no own anything. Everything own by respective owners.

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A body lay broken in the cell, more than a million miles away from the planet Earth. The limbs were tense, arms lying uniformly by their sides and legs split apart by about a foot. In the wrists, ankles, shoulders and thighs were eight thin, sharp blades. There was no blood seeping from the wounds, only some kind of dark energy. The skin was damaged badly across the chest, and the school shirt worn by the boy was slashed open to reveal huge cuts. These were bleeding, but not heavily. Already some light around the edge of the bloodshed was healing the skin. It was scarring over. The head was lolling to the side, hair pressed against the forehead by sweat.

Alexander Karsath was having a nightmare. And he was also living one.

Every second in his sleep, his fingers twitched wildly. His body was shaking all over, racked with pain. As soon as the others had left Ms Ito had walked back in, to give Alex some more... shock treatment. Now he was trapped alone in a cell. The woman had thrown some kind of green liquid over him and left. That was the most charity she had given him all day. It had dealt away with the blood, and now the kunai were wedged in the skin, but it hadn't been strong enough to treat the wounds caused by the two evil twins immediately. They were healing as slowly as possible. And he was still feeling the pain from the knives driven into his nervous system. The strange concoction had done nothing for that.

In his mind, things were getting a lot worse. It was the same dream he'd been having since the day that the younger Zivaku, Isaac, had attacked him. This time, though, Isaac was joined by Syaoran, and both were leading armies of Heartless and Ms Ito clones respectively. The Heartless weaved in and out of the ground like a giant black ocean, eyes darting around like fish. The Ms Ito clones juggled their blades in the same manner that synchronised swimmers dived, all together in perfect lines. It looked like, he thought softly as the hordes began to rip him apart, a dark lagoon with the fireflies circling the ripples of the water. Yellow spots bright against flowing black.

Then both were fading away as everything became black. A pale, weak green light shone in the distance. A cutesy doll of Joumae with a cocky grin and large, puppy-dog eyes was sitting down in his own little corner, with his arms set in stocks. He reached out for it blearily. The doll looked up, frowning, its eyes becoming sorrowful. Alex was shaking. There was blood dripping from every few inches of skin. His clothes were plastered to his back. His hair was in his eyes and there was a dull sting in one leg.

Slowly, these injuries crept up on Joumae. Alex shuddered violently, sickened. Suddenly a giant tentacle of darkness surged up from the floor and shot towards Joumae. The doll was wrapped up in the black slimy limb, going limp at once. It was pulled down into what looked like a swirling silver pool-

KHKHKH

"Roxas, you can't be considering this! The Faction will turn against you!"

The boy turned around to looked at Axel. "Then why are you coming along?" he asked. "You'd be turned against too."

"I'm trying to dissuade you, moron!" Axel argued back, but it was no use. As always, Roxas had managed to find his weakness. He couldn't help but help his best friend. "Anyway, what's in it for you to rescue this kid? The... Lockshield Wielder?"

Roxas stopped. "You know Sora?"

"Yeah?"

"He's important to him." Roxas continued to walk.

Axel held his hand out, but gave up pretty quickly. He and Roxas had known each other for a few years now. Axel was cocky, irrepressible and a huge practical joker. He was famous at the local community college that he attended (local to the world they were currently in) as being 'that guy who shoved two jocks into a cupboard with each other'. He'd also burnt down his orphanage when he was six... he thought, anyway. He didn't have such good memories of his childhood. All he did remember of the incident was being moved to another orphanage and being told that the old one had gone to 'Building Heaven'. Whatever Building Heaven was, and wherever it was, was unimportant; all it had meant at the time was a change of room.

Meanwhile, Roxas was nothing of the sort. You could fold him up like a paper crane, put him into a box and send him to Alaska to meet the Inuits, and he wouldn't do much more than glare at you when he got back after eating whale blubber for a week. He acted like a librarian around people he wasn't comfortable with. When there were people he knew, he acted scared of them. When they were people he was friends with, he was neither offensive nor interesting. He was cool, logical, quick-witted and only as fit as what was expected of him. There were no positives about his behaviour at all. He was the enigma, he was the mystery; he was the combination of every girl who played hard-to-get and every boy who silently wished they were dead.

Roxas held out his hand. At once a giant gold and silver object formed in his hand. Axel kept his mouth shut. If anybody found about what Roxas was, they'd either kill him or use him. Both were things that the blond didn't deserve. There was a glow of light, and the door to the cell opened. No codes, no key-cards, just Roxas's special skill was enough to get them in.  
He stepped over to Alex's nightmare-ridden body, straightened it, carefully removed the swords and began scratching lines into the floor. Axel stepped up behind him. "Okay... what are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm just marking down my... target." Roxas chose his words carefully. He didn't want any heart attacks to happen while he did this. It was a delicate procedure that he was about to set in motion - well, sort of. It was more delicate than the bucket of water over the head, that was for sure.

After carefully designing his bull's-eye around Alex's head, he stepped back and held up the weapon in his hands. A second beam of light shot out, and hit the centre of the bull's-eye: the spot in-between the boy's eyes. A few seconds, and Roxas's arm dropped.

KHKHKH

-and Alex's eyes snapped open. "Whuh... where am I?" he asked. Then his eyes fell upon what the blond boy was holding.  
It was a large sword that resembled a key, although just barely. There was a round silver shaft ending in a blocky tooth with a crown-shaped bite taken out of the bottom, creating an odd effect. The padded leather hilt was framed in a square gold hand-guard with dimpled circular lumps on the back corners like ears. A long, thick chain on a large ring hung down from a sliding hook on the back, ending with an odd silver charm that looked like a mouse's head. Alex recognised it. It was the one Sora and Hawk had brought to him just earlier that afternoon.

Things began to click into place. Umi no Shirube's talk of a strange group with Heartless and Nobodies and the strange boy who looked like him - this Faction, led by Syaoran and a group of masochist maniacs with no social lives. The Keychain that they had shown him, the one which had been found at the scene of the attack last week - the one that now hung from Roxas's weapon. The dream he had had about the boy would had come to visit him, holding something that looked exactly like what Roxas was holding at this very second. The fact that, after Sephiros, the holders of the Keyblades were split from the Karsath family to other people based on their hearts.

All this time... and the Keyblade Wielder had been part of his enemy.

He sat up and immediately summoned the Lockshield. "Who are you?" he growled.

Roxas - was it Roxas? His mind still wasn't clear yet - kept his head as before. He was holding the Keyblade steady at his side. "I'm _nobody_."

Alex smiled almost gleefully, then stopped himself. Was it his tortured mind talking or was he actually pleased to be able to hurt the one who had stolen the Keyblade from him? "You're not nobody," he replied, gathering his bearings. If he lost himself now, he'd be dead. With all the clues adding up, he now knew that Roxas was the one who had taken down the Darkside single-handed. Right now, he was weak. Roxas had the ability to kill him. "If you were, would you be here?"

Roxas gave a very pointed look at him. "Look... Alexander," Roxas said, hesitated as he said the other's name, "I'm breaking you out because I know you're Sora's friend. I know Syaoran needs you for the Kingdom Hearts and I know that your grandfather probably isn't going to like you so much if you ran away from a challenge and I know that Alice is gonna be pretty mad at you unless you force her into another painting. But I also know that Sora needs you to stay alive and not come to an end in this most pathetic of places. Understand?" Roxas held up the Keyblade and chanted, "_Curaga_." A green light shone on him, flower petals falling as a huge crystal unfolded above his head.

Axel crossed his arms. "Guys," he stressed, "if you want to get out, get out while this door's open!"

Alex hesitated, then stood, very shakily. He grabbed onto a wall one-handed, checking that the sword wounds were okay. There were just the scars and the encrusted blood left to show that they had even existed. "Alright."

He followed the two outside of his cell, finally turning around to get a look at it. Even in the dark, the floor strips were bright and reflective, shining on the rest of the room - if you could call it a room; the whiteness went on almost forever. There was no sense of distance here. The walls either blended into the floor in the dull light, or they didn't exist at all, and the door across the way was leading to their dimension again. The floor was just a curling platform with those strips on and all around it was pale, unnoticeable oblivion. The cells themselves weren't attached to any walls. They looked like trailers from the travelling circus that Alex had been dragged to by Erica four years ago. That fact made him feel worse. He'd looked just like an animal in a zoo while sitting there.

Roxas tapped him on his shoulder and brought him back to reality. "Idiot," he said, and Alex narrowed his eyes at him. "We're supposed to be _going_."

"Just getting a look at where I've been for the last hour."

Roxas turned around slowly, and began to laugh. "Are you kidding me? It's nearly eleven o' clock on your world, Alexander." He began pacing around the room. Axel sighed and pulled the two out into the corridor.

The halls of the strange fortress Alex had been brought to looked almost exactly the same until you looked at the site map. Every corridor stretched on for what seemed like miles at a time. There were strange grooves imprinted in the panels. They were simply straight grey, cool lines, winding in and out of each other like the gold lines on a microchip. The floor had no carpets but was perfectly fine being plain, being basically many different square and circle panels. There were no furnishings, but every now and then a wall opened out to reveal a balcony with balustrades that hung over a black city scattered with neon lights beyond its reaches.

The two boys and their elder kept themselves alert as they moved on through. Every now and then something slithered around in the corner of Alex's vision. The shadows twitched with each step he took. Uneasily he began backtracking with every few steps, just to see if there was anything suspicious. Meanwhile, the Faction members' footsteps were in perfect synchronisation, almost as if they were one... Alex found himself beginning to drift away as he walked, back into his dreams. He staggered for a few steps, then shook his head.

But the steps brought him back. Eventually, after about five hallways that all looked the same, he yielded and closed his eyes, slowing down. If the other two were looking back, which they were with no doubt, they would be watching him sleepwalking.

_It's beginning_, said Joumae from somewhere in the black. He couldn't be seen, and his voice was weak. _I'm gone. Help me._

"What if... what if what Syaoran said is true, though?" Alex asked. "Why would I help you if you're just going to use me?"

Joumae was silent. Then he spoke up again. Now he sounded even further away. _If it is, Alexander, then I would have done so by now. I'm not that silly-_ his voice took on a joking tone, but he sounded like he was on death row, _-I wouldn't humour you like that. Bye..._

"Alexander!" The cry snapped him back into consciousness. A group of creatures were standing in their path. They didn't look like any Heartless Alex had ever seen - they weren't even wearing black, for a start. They were strange, flexing individuals in a sort of pale grey suit. Their arms and legs could only be described as hooked tentacles. Their shoulders and hips were very emphasised and their waists were tiny, making them look feminine. Their heads were conical in shape, with an unusual crest on the forehead, and their mouth was nothing but a long zip crossing its face.

Axel stepped forward into the brink. He took a squatting stance, clenching his fists with his face twisted in agony. Around them and along the walls spurted bursts of flames. The floor's appearance changed, becoming rocky. Magma itself began flowing underneath them. Grinning, Axel then thrust his arms out to the side. Two silver and red chakram span out of oblivion onto his wrists. Roxas held the Keyblade steady next to his friend, feeling the seemingly familiar ground with his feet. Maybe they'd done this together before. Or against one another.

Alex hesitated, studying his enemy. It wasn't a Heartless, at any cost, so a couple of hits wouldn't be enough to fell it. Maybe, if he tried continuous combos-

He was interrupted in his train of thought as Roxas suddenly fired off past him, key-like weapon in hand. Two of the mysterious creatures oozed forward, jutting out their pelves as they went. Roxas smirked, and brought the silver shaft down on the skull of one of them. Its zip mouth ripped open to reveal its actual mouth behind. Next he slashed upwards, striking it into the air. He jumped and span the blade around, hitting a third time - a fourth - a fifth - a sixth - until the monster broke up into small fragments of darkness. The boy landed and launched himself at the second enemy with incredible speed, batting it back into the air and knocking it away into a nearby wall.

Axel's fighting style had a slightly more... theatrical approach. Despite his height and lanky limbs, he was incredibly light on his feet, dancing about in a subtle dodging attempt. He swung his arms around, throwing his chakram at the foes. One of the chakram missed, but the other hit its target and tore straight through its head. It disappeared within seconds. The spinning blade's path was soon cut through as it vanished itself - right back into Axel's hand. After a couple more capering steps, more of them began to come forward. With a few animalistic growls, he began striking out with the chakram in his hands. Soon they too joined their comrades.

Alex hung back, simply watching them as they fought. It was fantastic to see them in action, he thought as he stood still, not wanting to attract the attention of the strange creatures. They worked together so well, just like black and white.

Light and darkness. Something surfaced in Alex's mind again. 'Take the darkness and wear it proudly'... he still didn't understand it properly. Who would wear their darkness proudly? He wasn't one to parade his sins like Joseph's Technicolor dream-coat; they just dirtied his clothes. He didn't want to seen for his mistakes - he'd made way too many already, and he wasn't going to try to make them again. They weren't something to be proud of. That would be just silly. They just existed to be forgotten.

Roxas snapped his fingers, sighing. The sound echoed in Alex's head, making him look up with dead eyes. "Come on." The voice sounded eerily godly, penetrating deep inside him. There was no way Alex could refuse the command. His feet began moving despite everything his brain was saying: to stop, to ask what was going on, to ask if this was a trap. But all his logical thoughts were pushed aside.

They began to walk again, although their weapons were drawn. Alex kept his eyes on Roxas, half-confused and half-hypnotised. There was something about him. Though he would hate to admit it aloud, the boy was just so familiar. He knew he was probably stupid to think this, but he knew he had seen Roxas before today.

Axel decided to break some of the tension. "It's a long way out," he commented. "Normally when I'm wandering the way, things don't seem so... distant."

"Distance is dependant upon your perception," Roxas noted. "It's only long because we're escorting the prisoner."

Axel scoffed. "You mean breaking him out."

"Precisely," Roxas finalised, and began walking ahead. Axel shook his head, and looked back at Alex.

"Yo, you!" he barked, making Alex jump. Those lines underneath his eyes were beginning to creep him out. "Why is it Roxas is fascinated with you? What's so special about you?"

Alex frowned. "That's my problem," he said. "I know I've met Roxas before, but I don't know."

Axel laughed. "He's the kind of guy who reminds you of somebody, then, huh?" he replied. "Well, who's that?"

The brunet bowed his head, rubbing his temples. "I don't know that either..." He groaned. Things were starting to get really weird. By the end of the day, he'd be running around dressed as a creampuff stuffing _Pocket Monsters_ games into people's mouths.

"Hmm... makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"You got that right, Axel."

The redhead blinked. "I didn't say that..." Confused, Alex turned around, and got the shock of his life.

The was a young man of about seventeen or eighteen standing behind him. His dark forest hair, sporadically arranged over a black headband, was draped over his thin, determined white face like a pair of curtains. It shaded two shimmering amethyst eyes, currently narrowed, and a dash-like mouth. He was around five foot six, just a little taller than Alex was, and a lot under Axel's height. The Faction coat was open across his chest, the striped apron resembling the German flag hanging off one shoulder strap, to reveal a muscular chest further hidden by a black tank top that exposed his stomach. Against all gender roles he was wearing a short miniskirt (Alex found it fit to avert his eyes, as usual) and his feet were covered in sandals.

The one problem Alex had at the moment with this man was his identity. He was flaunting it in front of a person who knew exactly who he was and he didn't seem to mind.

Roxas stepped forward. "Out of the way, _palm-tree_," he growled. "I thought you were out of here."

"Well, I just got back," replied the homunculus, copying his face. "What's he doing outside of his cage?"

"He's not an animal," Roxas retorted.

The man stretched, ignoring him. Then he threw an arm out, which sharpened into a point. It barely hit Alex, skimming past him and ripping into his school shirt. He brought his arm back, and drew Alex straight in. "Time to see the boss," said Envy, and Alex felt his legs weaken as soon as their eyes met.


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Okay, as you may've seen, this story's a bit of a crossover (the next is a definite). However, I'm sticking to a lot SQUE'ENIX stuff in this one, and I'm not going to diverge completely from that. So, Envy is owned by Hiromu Arakawa and animated by BONES, and voiced by Wendy Powell of FUNimation. Also, the guy in some chapters back, Glenn, is from **_**Chrono Trigger**_** and was illustrated by Akira Toriyama and animated by Toei. Yah.**

"Envy, get off him," Roxas snarled.

The homunculus chuckled wildly. "Ooh, and why would I?" he said. His voice was like a bell, sleek yet powerful. Roxas held up the Keyblade threateningly. Envy gave it almost no attention, preferring instead to rummage around in his coat's surprisingly large pocket. He began to draw something out like a gun; however, when it was in full view, Alex saw it to be a mirror. "When I know exactly what you freaks are, Nobodies? Being one in the Faction, being incomplete - that's a crime!"

Roxas's expression grew more sour. "Like you're one to talk, homunculus," he spat. "You're the deadest thing here, worse than me. What's a soul without a body or a heart but a ghost?"  
Alex looked from Roxas to Envy and back again. Things were growing confusing. Why would Envy be threatening Roxas? And... Why was Roxas threatened by his reflection? What did that homunculus mean by calling Roxas and Axel 'incomplete'? ...And how come homunculus now meant a soul without a body instead of a body without a soul?

Axel span the chakram in his hands in a wide arch, cutting incredibly close to Envy and Alex's sides. "Hey! I thought you said I was the only Nobody in the Faction!" he yelled to Roxas. "You were lying?"

"I needed to lie, we both needed to!" Roxas cried back. "There was no way we could survive on truth alone! In the end, Axel... we're _nothing_. That's it."

'We'... Alex pulled away and, in a moment of fantastic strength, the collar of his school shirt ripped away from Envy's grasp. The garment was now almost destroyed, but that wasn't what Alex cared about at the moment while he buttoned the blazer up until it looked like a Russian military uniform. Instead, it was what had just been said. Roxas had used the magic word, 'we', and he hadn't been referring to Axel when it had happened. Every clue began to lock together like the pieces of a puzzle - the face, the eyes, the hair, the voice and now the manner of speech. The picture was beginning to show, only some parts were missing. Now he just needed to retrieve them; and who better to pull them from but the man of the hour, Roxas himself?

He turned around to look at the mirror. His eyes widened. His fingers gingerly reached up to his ear, searching for the familiar itch that had plagued it since last Thursday. But it wasn't there. Because Joumae wasn't his reflection anymore. He was looking at his own face and he now realised how much he hated looking at himself. His nose was scarred, and he had a huge scab on his forehead. His hair was all a mess, spiking all over the place. His eyes, too, had turned slightly feral.

He then looked behind his reflection. Peering over the side was the alarmed, fearing face of Sora. Axel, meanwhile... he had no reflection at all.

He looked back at Roxas. "What's going on?" he said. Another great time for his voice to crack up. "What are Nobodies, and what happened to Sora?"

The blond bit his lip, silent. Envy let out a shrieking laugh. Damn, the whole castle was going to wake up if he continued. "You didn't tell him?" he howled. "This is too much! He's your best friend, isn't he, So-Ra?" He pronounced the name one syllable at a time, and Roxas seethed wordlessly. "Oh, did I touch a nerve?"

"You tried, you won!" Roxas shouted, lashing out with the Keyblade. The homunculus grinned, then morphed. Alex had seen this trick; Envy was a character from _FullMetal Alchemist_ and, thanks to his sister, he now knew who he was. Envy's special trick was changing into different people, because he was 'jealous' of what they had. He usually did sabotage, but he was an expert at manipulating people. And right now he was about to use his trick.

Now Kairi was standing there. Roxas stopped in mid-air, paralysed. Then suddenly, his face melted away. In a shining light, Roxas was gone, and Sora stood there, completely immobilised.

Envy morphed back to his favoured form. "I hope I don't have to remind you of my... special skills," said Envy, inspecting his fingernails. "I'm sure Syaoran will want to know about this whole business, and I personally don't think he'll mind of my homunculus status. After all, the dead have no darkness or light to worry about," he began to boast. "They are still considered whole as the other parts are simply deceased and that is something that is impossible to solve, I think my good ol' half-brothers will find out soon enough."

Sora said nothing. Axel crossed his arms.

"So... you and Roxas are one. I should've known." He shook his head, a smile coming to him. "No wonder you never showed up at the same time. And all this time, I just thought you were brothers."

Alex sighed. "Still, what's going on?" he asked, tapping his foot to an irregular beat so that he didn't blank out again. "I've got loads of questions, and God bless the day when I hand out the explanations for once."

Sora shook his head. Envy had another small bout of mirth before grabbing the youngest person in the hall by his wrists and dragging him along the corridor. Sora walked almost dollishly, all expression wiped from his face. "You're pathetic," he commented. "You kept that secret for nine years, and I'm very much impressed. Most people crack down after two."

Axel and Alex exchanged worried glances, then Alex began to walk after them. Axel rubbed his temples thoroughly. "Can't believe it; I'm gonna be kicked out."

"Not if I can help it," said Alex, closing his eyes. But this time, everything felt...

...empty. He couldn't hear Joumae's voice anymore. Worried, he sent out one more message in his head.

_Joumae!_

_Alex?_ a quiet voice said. The boy's eyes widened, and he looked at Sora. There was a voice speaking from him - through him? - but it wasn't belonging to Sora. It was Roxas's 'sharp-like-salt' tone. _I'm sorry we kidnapped you. But there was little we could do._ The boy looked over at him. There was a flash of light, and Roxas had taken over Sora.

Alex laughed. "Little you could do? You could have not done it."

"Sora requested the mission for us himself," Roxas admitted. He kept his voice hushed, as if not wanting Envy to be listening. "We was allowed to go by Syaoran, but he was under the impression that we were two different people. We would come to this castle on different days, acting like we were friends, although I guess being Axel's idea of us being brothers was more likely." He smirked. "I like Axel. He's my friend. Sora respects him too, but me and Axel are very good friends."

Alex could have stopped in the middle of the corridor if it weren't for the obligation to keep moving. He skimmed around his brain for conversation ideas. Luckily, a memory surfaced. "Hey, Roxas?" he began. "What's a Nobody?"

Roxas sighed. "We're creatures created at the same time a person becomes a Heartless," he said. "In the usual cases, the removal of the heart only causes darkness to take over that heart and turn it into a Heartless. The body and the soul fade away." He slowed in his steps, causing Envy to look back. He bowed his head. Envy glared, then continued walking, eyes back on the pathway. Roxas sighed. "But in the more difficult cases, if the person's heart was strong, then the soul and the body become strong. They act with their own will, and so a Nobody is born. We don't have hearts; so we all want to find our heart. Except for me."

"Why?"

"I have my heart." Roxas gave a small smile. "My heart was returned to me by somebody, the day Sora lost it."

Alex's face grew solemn. "That's the day I thought he died. I ran, like a coward."

"You weren't a coward, you were six years old." The blond ran his hand through his crown-like spikes. "He didn't die. We were attacked by Heartless in the street, remember?" His words began to tumble out of his mouth before he could stop them. "That day, we were... Sora was feeling different. The day was growing dull. The clouds were grey-" Roxas took a shaky breath. "I remember every detail. The roads were empty. There was nobody outside, so no other witnesses to what happened that day. Everybody was in. There were dogs barking in the next street. The newspapers had just been delivered... and I think Mrs Hashimoto had left the cat out. I remember some black cat running out in the middle of the road."

"Me too," Alex muttered guiltily. He too remembered exactly how everything had been. It wasn't hard to forget the day that your best friend was ripped away from you.

"And don't you remember? You were playing conkers. Our - Sora's - mom had collected seashells when she was young and that morning she'd leant him some old, tough seashells that she didn't want to keep. So he took them and cut some holes in them, tied up some string. You were on your..." He punched the side of his own head. "...third, third game. You'd won a round each, it was best-two-out-of-three."

The Nobody sighed angrily. "And then, like a burning bomb, a bunch of Air Pirates dropped out of the sky. You were screaming, but nobody could hear you because the darkness was all around."

Alex gulped. "And then... Sora..."

Roxas finished the sentence for him. "...was attacked. Yes. And you did the only thing you could think of and ran. It was all you could do, Alex. When you weighed up the options, the alternative would have been horrible," he added, hoping to console the boy. Alex still shook his head, ashamed of himself. Age had nothing to do with it. He was simply a coward. Cowards had no place in respectable society.

"Be glad, though. Somebody returned my heart before it was too late," Roxas admitted. "Sora was on the brink of turning into a Heartless and I was about to wake up. Because my heart was returned, me and Sora could survive together. For years we've been like this, though, just two personalities sharing the same body. We're not what Syaoran or his group call whole. So, we want to be one."

The Lockshield Wielder sighed. "Should it really happen?" he asked himself. Next to him, Roxas returned to Sora his body. The blank, deathly look was empty and cold. Alex returned his gaze to the floor. "Maybe it shouldn't."

KHKHKH

After another few hallways, Axel noticed where they were. "Excuse me... Envy?" he asked.

The homunculus looked back at him. He had the most horrifying grin on his face. "Yes?" He was skipping in his step, Alex noticed.

"Well, we're walking past your dorm, right?" Axel continued.

"Skip to the point."

"Well, Syaoran's in there, and so is somebody who looks like you-"

"_WHAT_!?" Envy backtracked, tugging Sora back. The poor boy probably didn't feel any of it; he was too encompassed in his own thoughts to care at all for what was going on in the outside world. Luckily, Alex managed to catch him - and immediately embarrassed himself by nearly falling backwards. He steadied himself, and peered through the door to Envy's room.

Syaoran was looking blankly at the Envy who had just come in, because he'd been talking to the one holding Erica hostage. He was flipping a thin, round gold item over between his fingers several times. Erica also had a strange expression, but this was mainly because she was drooling over the second Envy that had come in. The Envy in the room was wide-eyed and looking slightly guilty. Even Alex's head began to spin crazily. Normally he could come up with a reason for things, but once again these people had driven him to the brink of his sanity. With any luck, a mental hospital might find him calm enough to induct while he tried to rid himself of this double vision that had struck.

The one with the denim hair was the first to try and speak. He stumbled over every few words as he did so. "Well, I... er..."

"_What's going on_!?" Envy demanded. "Who the hell is this?"

"This... is Envy?" Syaoran shrugged. "Hold the phone - who's the real Envy?"

"Me, of course!" cried the Envy who had just walked through the door. "I've recaptured our prisoner. And I just caught a few liars in our group to boot."

Syaoran squinted at him, reading his frown, then suddenly his gaze shifted to the other. The other Envy did nothing to deny, instead choosing to bear a ridiculously childish smile. The leader suddenly lifted his eyepatch and looked directly at them, but as he was covering his face, Alex couldn't see what was under there. All he saw was a bright yellowish light...

"Well, hello, there!" he barked, pointing at the one holding Erica.

The Envy impostor's fake face faded into a calm female face, although that didn't really mean much. It was a young girl, seemingly just about into her teens, with short brown hair and bright olive green eyes. The rest of the male body disappeared to show a petite female body clothed in a black-and-white dress, gloves and boots like legwarmers. She was hovering above the ground, the tails on her dress dancing about along the floor. "Guess you figured me out, huh?" Umi no Shirube chanted.

Erica sighed. "Knew it was too good to be true." She then looked out of the door at Alex. The boy began to wave his arms about in front of his face in an attempt to keep her silent. But ignoring that part was pretty easy. "Hey, Alex!"

Syaoran's brown eye widened, and he looked back at the trio. Envy, too, seemed to have only just realised that they were still standing there and was fuming silently. Alex shuddered. Damn sister, he was dead because of her now. Sora jumped, finally back in the real world. Axel held out his chakram menacingly. Umi no Shirube pouted angrily. Syaoran stood up. Quick as a flash, Umi no Shirube screamed. Everybody covered their ears, closing their eyes. There was the quiet sound of air rushing, and then Alex felt his feet leave the ground.

He opened his eyes. The corridor was speeding away, Sora and Axel running after him. He looked up. Umi no Shirube was carrying him under one arm, Erica under another. They were flying away from the danger. Umi no Shirube had just saved his life. Now if only she could have saved his ears as well.

The blonde waved hello to him. "Hi, big bro!" she exclaimed. "Where are we?"

"I dunno, Erica," Alex said lazily. Then it clicked. They were leaving Sora and Axel behind! "Wait, Umi! Stop!" He flung out a hand, but he and Sora were already too far apart.

Alex's hand dropped as best as it could while he was flying. "No..."

KHKHKH

Axel finally stopped in the middle of the hallway, doubled over and breathing hard. Without his oxygen, he couldn't keep his inner fire going. His powers would be useless.

He kept his eyes on Sora, who was running off after Alexander still. The young caramel-haired boy had managed to carry himself far off down the corridor, too fast for the red-headed pyrokinetic to follow him. He couldn't continue, and he didn't just mean 'running after Alex and Sora'. There was no point at all. Why should he continue when there was nothing to continue for, anyway? He couldn't remember what his family looked like. He couldn't remember which world he was born on, who his friends were before the accident or what his Other had managed to achieve. Because he lacked a heart, he wasn't even existing as a person; just a shell of his former self. He was gone. He was nothing. He was a Nobody.

He turned around to see Syaoran. His father was standing next to him. "So, the homunculus tells us that you're... incomplete, Mr Yasui," the man said, menace oozing out of his words. "You don't have a heart. Is that why you joined us?"

Axel smirked. "I admit that I might have initially joined up to find my heart." He cocked his head. He might as well keep on playing funny-boy now. There was nothing else left to do. "But as long as that little spark within me's alight, no matter how dull it glows, I don't think I even have to try anymore," he retorted, crouching down. He span the chakram in his hands, juggling them as he did so.

Syaoran's father wagged his finger playfully. "Right, so that's what you call it," he chided. "And what do I call it? Insolence. The kind of insolence not suffered by a rampager at a blitzball match, but the kind suffered by a mutinous sailor in the middle of the ocean. That spark is meaningless. It's nothing more than the ghost left by your heart when it was removed by the Heartless. You still have to try, and try very hard, if you want your heart back."

Axel put himself into one last battle stance, then stood up. "Trust me when I say that the heart isn't something you can touch," he said.

"If it is, then our efforts to eliminate the Heartless were meaningless," the man said, his tone overruling. "Would you want all that work to go unrewarded? Remember that you have your real heart to consider here. Despite whatever feelings you may think you have, they are untrue. You don't know what emotion is - you're a Nobody. Nobodies can't feel."

"They can too!" Axel defended. "If not, then what is this anger I'm feeling? How come I feel like tearing you and Envy apart limb from limb? And my friendship with Roxas! What do you call that?"

"You were never friends. You simply only have mutual recollection of what it was like to have friends."

The lanky Nobody growled. "_Bullshit_!" he swore. "You know when friendship is real and when it's not! I want to kill you to defend Roxas!"

"Would you die to protect him?" The question hit him like a speeding train. Would he really die for his friends? He considered for a moment. What would his death achieve? Probably very little. Roxas - and Sora, being Roxas's host - would only be killed afterwards. Then Alex would probably be so distraught that he'd listen to Syaoran and his father and obliterate every good Nobody in the world. But what else would it prove? Maybe his cowardice. They'd think he'd taken it as an easy exit. It would definitely prove his gullibility, believing that he could save Roxas if he died for it. He knew that was never going to happen. Syaoran's father was a smart man.

But wouldn't it prove his loyalty? He was loyal to Roxas. Maybe through his death, he could prove that. That they really were friends and that Nobodies could feel and that they didn't need to search for reasons because there wouldn't have to be any.

Crazily, and not quite knowing what he was doing, he nodded. Syaoran smiled. "Dad?"

"Roxas," Axel muttered under his breath. "Let's meet again, Roxas. In the next life." Something Roxas had told him a long time ago, back when they had thought that they'd die together some day. "That's what you said, isn't it?"

The tall man whipped out his pistol.

"Silly. Just because _you_ have a next life..."

He fired two bullets.

KHKHKH

Sora ground to a halt and looked behind him, searching for the direction that the gunshots had come from. It felt like a huge weight was hung inside his chest. He looked back down the corridor.

"Axel..."


	24. Chapter 24

Umi no Shirube finally skidded to a halt in front of a pair large glass double doors. She dropped the Karsath siblings on the floor. While Alex tried to adjust to the sudden change in velocity, Erica stumbled to her feet.

"Whoa!" the blonde cried happily. "You're really fast, you know? And you could turn into Envy as well? That was awesome!"

The brunette girl scratched the back of her head, embarrassed. "Aw, shucks!" she mumbled. "It's just my special skill. You should meet my sister To-To if you wanna see something really cool!" She hopped around, and then gestured to the door behind her. Despite it being made out of glass, they couldn't see into it. Alex guessed that the laws of physics were different to each world; just like the laws of energy were manipulable as magic, the rest of the rules (thermodynamics, forces, probability) had to manipulable as well. It was the only way the balance worked out. This one was probably to do with light... "Once, when I was disguised, I went to this room. They had this huge machine set up in it."

Alex snapped his fingers. "While I was here, Syaoran said something about the Princesses of Heart. About how they open the Kingdom Hearts. And, come to think of it, I didn't see Ella, Belle, Shirayuki, Jasmine or Aurora at school today. And Naminé and Kairi were both talking about Princesses this afternoon, and how somebody wanted information on them."

"Kairi?" Umi no Shirube raised an eyebrow. "I saw her this afternoon, just after she came back from her mission. She got a talking to - she wasn't meant to say anything about the Princesses to Naminé or Alice. So-"

"-she wasn't on Faction orders?" Alex rubbed his forehead. "This may not be the first time I've said this, but the outer worlds are confusing as _hell_."

He inspected the doors. There was a panel next to it with hundreds of buttons, but he ignored that. The technology was just like the school gymnasium's partitions. And if it was exactly like the gymnasium, then he knew what to do when you didn't have the key code. He held up the Lockshield to the door. A beam of light shot out from it to strike in the slight line that marked where one door ended and the other began, and a loud click resonated throughout the corridor. Alex's first response was to wince; his second was to relax his arm as the door opened wide.

The room beyond was wide and impressive. The walls were blue - striking for such a plain, white place - and there were neon tubes running up in streaks. There were a number of platforms set around the room. They were open flat spaces, spread few and far between in the large area, but somehow they were held up by air. Alex was about to walk into the room when he looked downwards. The bottom of the area was black. The hole probably went on for miles. It could even have opened up into space.

He backed up, frightened. "I thought you said the princesses were in here!" he complained.

Umi no Shirube sighed, and touched down onto the floor. She walked over to an edge of the platform where there was a small neon-blue light lining it. She then proceeded to step forward, onto thin air - no, not thin air. A series of glass panels shimmered beneath her feet. She gestured for the others to come follow her. "You have to cross this to get to them!"

Erica lightly skipped across to the next platform, then turned around. "Come on, brother!" she cheered. "Or are you scared?"

"Am not!" Alex immediately retorted, due to the basic instinct to deny anything negative a sibling said about you, but one look down and he was scared as much as you could possibly be. There was even a second when he began to shake, just like he had done while sleeping. His head was running wild, but there was only one thought: _Too high, too high, too high, too high, too high, too high, too high, too high, too high_- And then he was picked up again. Umi no Shirube had slung him under one arm. He closed his eyes, waiting to drop.

It didn't happen.

He opened one eye gingerly, after some time. Umi no Shirube had carried him across the room, while Erica was walking on the panels. They all seemed to connect to one another. Alex shook his head, still dizzy from all the black. The flying girl rolled her eyes, pulling Alex further back from the edge and dumping him gently on the platform. Well, they were actually stairs leading up to yet another platform, this one being the tallest he had seen yet. There was also a purple glow hovering in the air, and a glimpse of a round shape, like a moon. The brunet looked up and gulped.

Umi no Shirube gave a pointed look. "Well, yeah, you're going up!" she frowned. "And don't you dare attempt a Jackson Pollock. You don't know how hard people have to scrub these floors without that mess, thank you." Alex swallowed his stomach contents back down and followed her up the stairs, Erica tagging behind.

The top of the pillar was something of a sight to behold. A mammoth-sized contraption involving a hulking laser gun of the fashion you'd find in science fiction novels was set up to six crystal pods of varying size, containing some kind of black material. The gun itself was shaped very much like a First World War machine gun that tapered to a point at the end of the barrel. Underneath the gun was a seat with various equipment attached: a pair of handlebars to angle the gun with, a crosshair lens, a series of buttons, several energy gauges and a heart monitor were just a few of the gadgets that the large weapon had. Bursting from the barrel was a hair-thin beam of light.

Alex wandered over the capsules. Large bronzed piping led to the bases of them, and the material they were made of was very thick and frosted. He stepped over the various wires that a broken pipe revealed, towards what seemed like a fresh pod. His eyes widened.

It was Alice. She was trapped inside the pod. Closer inspection revealed that she had been placed in some kind of stasis mode, which involved real freezing; how did he know any of this...? There! Part of her black hair band had begun to drip over the edge of her head, and some of the frills on her dress were also in odd strings hanging slightly to the left. It somehow looked like she was melting - and then he figured it out. She was a painting. She wasn't even real; she was just made out of tens of layers of paint.

A muffled scream came from past one of the containers. Alex shuddered at the sight of Ella's frozen face, then wandered behind the capsule. There was Naminé, who was tied up like a regular hostage. There was a gag in her mouth. Alex sneaked forward, and untied it from the back of her head. She breathed.

"Thank you," she said, "although it may not mean much now."

Alex was confused. "Why?" he asked her, kneeling down.  
Naminé shook her head. "I was put here as a trap for Sora," she explained. "Sora... he's very awkward around me. That Mr Damashii person decided to leave me here as bait ("_Mr Damashii_!?" Alex yelled, but Umi no Shirube shushed him). Then he could use him and his Keyblade to open..." She pointed up. "...that."

'That' was a huge, heart-shaped moon hovering close to them. Alex stood up, mesmerised by the light. Erica wandered up the strange laser gun and sat in the seat, checking the crosshairs. "This thing's pointed directly to it!" she declared. Alex squinted; he could just about see the tiny beam pointing into the centre of the moon.

"Why are they firing that?" he wondered.

Naminé took a quick look over the apparatus. "They're not firing," she concluded, "they're extracting." Everybody looked at her.

Alex could have stroked his beard if he had one. "According to Syaoran, they were going to find the 'true light' inside the Kingdom Hearts," he said. "But with something this powerful-looking, I'd think the light would automatically override everything anyway. So what are they going to extract?"

"Heartless," said a light voice, and they looked back. Sora had climbed the stairs in about two seconds - no wonder he was panting so hard. He blushed as he saw Naminé, and ran over to her, loosening her binds. The stick figure of a girl slid through the rope and stood up, smiling. Sora, however, was wearing a grim face.

Alex walked up to him. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Sora bowed his head. "The bait's already drawn me in. The Faction think Naminé... could be the last Princess of Heart." He looked up. "She isn't, though. It's Kairi."

"Kairi?" Alex stuttered in shock.

The caramel boy nodded. "Yep. Kairi is the Princess of a world called Hollow Bastion. That's where her parents lived, a long time ago. Aqua Hashimoto, Kairi's mother, just happened to be a famous Keyblade Wielder, the second of the three who sought to defend the worlds when Sephiros's protection broke down after Joumae left his blood and passed on into your mother's." Sora looked up into the eerily black night. "But Aqua got hurt bad while trying to protect her world. So she and her then boyfriend came to Earth to seek refuge."

Naminé continued. "A lot of this must be to do with the Keyblade Wielders," she whispered. "My cousin Ven was the last one, before the Keyblade Wielders disappeared. He was killed six months ago."

"Earth's got a lot of dreams to represent," Sora said. "For many, it's the hope of a planet, a united world. Your home is every living heart's ideal. The worlds outside of here are mostly broken up into small pieces, from the original world that existed. For a few people, Earth also represents simplicity. The people here are blissfully unaware of the outside existence. Their attempts to reach out to other worlds have been broken. Earth seems isolated; safe and secure under its own ideas and laws. And then, finally, many consider the protection of a Keybearer, a Keyblade Wielder, to be the ultimate defence from the darkness. Aqua, after succumbing to many wounds, and knowing that a Key would be passed on after she no longer needed it, came to Earth."

"I'm sorry," Alex immediately apologised. "But still - where's all this going?"

"The clincher is that the three non-Karsath Keyblade Wielders - Terra, Aqua and Ven - were all opposed to a movement in one of the worlds called Archades," Sora said. "Every member of the Faction is told about the group's history. Archades was a world that grew greedy in his need for power. The lord ruler of Archades reached out, sending his armies to attack the nearby worlds. The blades of his warriors were somehow powered by dark amulets. Those who fell to the sword..."

"...lost their hearts," Alex mumbled in understanding.

Sora nodded. "The newly-born empire found the remaining creatures, Heartless, to be incredibly useful. They didn't hurt, they didn't bleed and they didn't back out. They were mindless slaves who would walk into battle when commanded to do so. The real, human armies began to be replaced by hordes of Heartless. The other worlds didn't stand a chance - the darkness took them over within hours whereas an invasion would take months at least. They were lost. And worst of all, this undermined everything the Keyblade Wielders had been doing to stop the creatures from appearing.

"Needless to say that Aqua and Ven were both horrified by all of this. Just before the Keyblade was entrusted to Ven, the most terrible thing possible happened. Hollow Bastion was destroyed in a single night-time." Sora hung his head. "I cannot say that I do not envy the dead. Aqua's rage was such that, while Kairi was only a few days old, her mother ran out into war at half the ability of a normal fighter and was killed almost instantly."

Alex breathed in sorrow. "But... still!" he said, head snapping up. "Why this story? What's it got to do with the Faction at all?"

Sora's face grew ominous. He spoke quietly now. "The Hikari Faction... was an organisation started during Archades' imperialist campaigns. Some of the 'Heartless' that they had found appeared to be rebelling against them. After a while the Archadian scientists began to study some of their soldiers. Over half of their forces were these strange white creatures, that seemed more powerful than regular Heartless. The Archadians thought it'd be a smart idea to have them in some of their chief positions, in control of entire squadrons. Their plan, however, was ruined from the moment they set it in motion. The Nobodies were the smart minds of their victims and, without emotions clouding their thoughts, they had enough logic and a lingering taste of hate in their mouths to bring them down.

"The Hikari Faction was the idea of a-" Sora stopped, and made air quotes with his fingers, "-'_smart_' Archadian merchant. He employed the sharpest, most conniving people he could find across the empire. Their dream: to rid themselves of all whose bodies had been torn apart. They had the thesis that Nobodies and Heartless both would ruin the Archadian empire, and that the world would be at its best without either creature. Sure, their ideas were the same as those of the Keyblade Wielders, but they had one difference - the Faction supported the empire."

As the others absorbed the wealth of information, Erica finally decided to speak up. "Hey, if this Kairi girl's from Hollow Bastion, shouldn't that mean she should be against the Faction?" she asked.

The others mulled this over for a while. Then Naminé smiled. "Kairi didn't come to my building because she was sent by the Faction," she realised. "Kairi came because she was told to by a boy who's been trying to phone me up for a few weeks now. I think his name was Jiba-"

"Zivaku!" Alex finally yelled. "I get it now! Kairi's a double agent for the little demon boy!"

There were footsteps from below. Alex covered his mouth, horrified. Damn, they'd heard him... God-damned... But his breath hitched irrespective of all of the trouble he was about to be thrown into. Mr Damashii and Syaoran were climbing the stairs, dragging behind them a dead body. Axel's dead body. And following them were Envy and Kairi. Kairi was bound and gagged just like Naminé had been. Sora panicked, standing completely still.

Syaoran laughed in a hollow fashion. "Don't know who to be?" he joked. "Both Kairi and Naminé are in trouble. Will Roxas come out or not?"

Envy giggled girlishly too. "He will. Axel was the perfect incentive, my friend," he growled, smirking. To emphasize, he morphed into the lanky redheaded man. The pseudo-Axel held out a hand to Sora, and Umi no Shirube shrieked. "Come on, Roxas," he said. "I can't be dead; you know that. We promised we'd go together." Alex noticed with a sudden feeling of terror that even Envy's voice had changed. "Remember?" Even worse was the look on Sora's face: that look that he gave was one of submission. Axel was the bait and Sora was biting. The others could do nothing as a burst of light flashed out and Roxas stood there, eyes glistening.

He began shaking his head. "You killed Axel?" he said slowly. "You bastard... you killed Axel!" His voice started out quiet, but then burst into a scream. "You bastard! Tell me..." He clenched his fist in anger. "_Why_ would you do such a thing!? It's completely Heartless!"

Mr Damashii crossed his arms. "Heartless... they're pathetic slaves. I don't find them dangerous at all." His tone had changed from the way he spoke in class about the creatures. Even though he had been praising their design before, now he was mocking and cruel. "They're just instincts that flock to the nearest, most powerful darkness. I'd say they were perfect for that Zivaku kid, then. Darkness flows from him like a river." He raised his hand - he was holding an Altair pistol. "But Nobodies can plan. They can scheme. That's why we won't cope with Nobodies like you, Roxas. You're too powerful for your own good. And since your Somebody holds a Keyblade, a weapon of light, things are much worse. You aren't whole - that Keyblade of yours assures that fact."

Roxas's snarls were growing louder and more pronounced by the second. The Keyblade shone menacingly, the glint like the eyes of a big cat about to pounce. Alex swallowed down his fears. Roxas was not going to attack, he was not going to charge, he was not going to even think it, Alex wasn't even going to think it-  
-too late.

Syaoran crossed his arms. "And it's funny," he said. "We would have helped you regain yourself, had you told us earlier. You, and little Erica-" the named girl stiffened, "-could have been the keys to saving hume kind without the need to resort to Kingdom Hearts. But, of course..." He rubbed the eye patch, feigning tiredness. It seemed to be made of some brown, thick material. "...you didn't tell us in time."

That's when Roxas's concentration broke. He began to charge. Mr Damashii growled, firing a few shots into the air. Most simply clipped Roxas on the sides, but one of them found its target: right in Roxas's shoulder. Blood trickled down his previously immaculate white coat as he growled in pain, slowing. Sora reappeared in the confusion. Mr Damashii held the weapon up again-

-and Alex hurried shakily into the middle, summoning the Lockshield. He'd done this so fast that Mr Damashii fired before he realised he was there. The bullets made a loud _rap! rap! rap!_ noise as they deflected off the cold black metal.

Mr Damashii dropped his arm. In both senses of the word. "Son," he said, "give Mr Karsath the Sage." The tall sixteen-year-old frowned stubbornly, before giving over the small hand-mirror.  
Alex looked into the tiny trinket. Within the glass was not his reflection; instead it was filled with black smoke, which seemed to be billowing from the mirror. He squinted, looking deep in. It took only seconds for the keen hazel eyes to spot the lurching fingers clawing from the inside of the glass, and for the sharp fifteen-year-old's critical mind to sense the familiar feel of a certain genetic spectre.

_A... A... Alex!_ The voice echoed in his head.

"Joumae!?" Alex cried. "Is that you, Joumae!?"

_...I dunno, is that Alex or some kind of distraught lady I'm speaking too?_ Yep, that was Joumae, alright. Always with the stupid names, even when they were in the middle of a universal crisis... It'd better not be the former.

"Say that again, you snide git, and I chop your limbs off," Alex said dully, a little to the surprise of the two blue-haired people who were trying to be good evil villains and give their enemy a sporting chance.

_Knew I had no chance of it being a girl._ Joumae sighed, crossing his arms visibly in the mirror.

"Mr Karsath?" He looked up. The Altair was pointed at his face. Right between the eyes. "You should keep your eyes on your enemies." Fire.

Stop.

Sora stood, surveying the frozen action. The bullet, caught in mid-air by the time-stop. Mr Damashii, smirking crazily with his finger on the trigger. Envy, dressed up as Axel and wearing a satisfied grin. Syaoran, his expression hesitant. Kairi and Naminé, caught sneaking into the shadows as Isaac Zivaku was stepping out himself. Hawk, climbing the stairs, hovering around. Erica's face as she panicked, her body just about overbalanced as she broke into a run. Umi no Shirube's startled reaction, flying back with her hands reaching up to cover her mouth. Alex, his eyes wide as he watched his entire life flash before him in one quick second.

The real Axel's body on the floor, a cocky grin still plastered across his pale face.

The fourteen-year-old boy sighed. "I promised... we promised, Axel," he said, and took his position. He looked back at Alex, whose face seemed... innocent. He was looking up, not as if he was about to scream, but as if there was a tiny ghost approaching him. The Lockshield was dropping out of his hand. "We told you we had trouble with this particular spell," he said, smiling one tiny smile. "It'll end soon. I'm thankful for knowing you. But I have to leave again." He looked at the Keyblade in his hand. "We'll meet again. In the next life... right?"

Black.


	25. Chapter 25

S'nearly done, according to the authoress who had me do this. Disclaimer: Own nothing but Hawk and everything isownedby their respective owners.

* * *

It was all other within a split second. Alex was just standing there when the shot was fired, holding the Sage of Sleep mirror in one hand and the Lockshield in the other. Mr Damashii had lured him into a subtle trap, by giving him the one thing he felt he needed the most. It wasn't every day you locked a spirit inside a mirror, after all. The last attempts at spirit-sealing had taken place on another world five years ago that existed past a dimensional gate, and over there they had different technologies and different taboos. But Joumae was different himself. To remove him was not to empty a body, but to create a void in somebody else's heart. And because Alex had felt himself fill up when given the mirror, it had been the perfect distraction from a cocked gun.

Then things had screwed up.

And now Sora knocked Alex back onto the floor, Keyblade disappearing. Hawk, who had just flew up the stairs like a hummingbird, stopped in his tracks. Isaac paused, pushing Naminé and Kairi back through the dark portal. Umi no Shirube sank, landing on her feet gingerly. Erica ran forward, skidding to a halt and kneeling next to her older brother, watching him as he anxiously shot up and felt the weight in his arms.

His eyes were watering.

His hands, jittery and tense, started grabbing onto the boy's clothes, almost as if he were trying to desperately hang on to him. He searched and searched for signs of life, taking his shaking fingers up gradually, finally grasping onto Sora's neck and staying there, feeling the now silenced pulse.  
Blood dripped onto his hand.

Mr Damashii turned on his heels briskly, walking towards the laser. Syaoran, looking down at Alex with a quite sorrowful expression, followed, his pace now slowed. Mr Damashii seated himself underneath the gun's main body, pulling down the handlebars and pressing some of the buttons. His son leaned against the side. Umi no Shirube growled, and tried to bat him away from the machine weakly. She slapped him in the face, her stomach knotted up in so many confused emotions that she couldn't sort out in a million years.

Syaoran rubbed his face, staring at her as if she'd grown another leg. "Shirube, what are you doing?" he gaped.

Alex shook his head in denial.

"Your father just killed somebody..." she said through her tears. Her voice was strained as she tried to talk without screaming. "And you don't even - what's wrong with you!?"

The denim-haired boy looked over to Alex. The boy was sitting, shivering and motionless at the same time. His face was fixed into the same blank expression - wide eyes and a tiny speck of a mouth that was barely moving as he talked quiet words of nonsense. His hold on Sora's frail self was such that if he gripped him any harder, the body's neck would snap clean in too. Erica and Hawk were both trying to talk to him, trying to calm him, but their words were falling on deaf ears. The Sage of Sleep was abandoned at Alex's side. If Syaoran concentrated, he would be able to catch a glimpse of Joumae rapping on the glass, trying to crawl out, wanting to help so badly...

And Isaac Zivaku was fuming behind them all, arms crossed. Syaoran stiffened.

Umi no Shirube crossed her arms, ready to bawl. "He killed somebody, Syaoran!" she yelled, pulling back her fist. "Now Sora's dead! And it's all because of _you_!" With one swift movement, she punched him in the jaw. Syaoran fell backwards, grabbing onto the gun's side and pulling himself back upright.

KHKHKH

Meanwhile, Isaac was still approaching. He may not have liked Alex and his friends as much as he thought he should. Hell, sometimes he guessed from Gregory's reports of the day that the boy could actually do some good in the world. He knew that a Karsath's blood was required to open the Kingdom Hearts; he knew that Sora and Gregory were classmates who had a pretty strained relationship; he knew that Alex had given up the Keyblade to Sora years ago.

But the one thing he couldn't understand was what had just happened. Kairi had sent out an alarm two hours ago signalling that the Faction were about to launch into their plot to open the Door To Light. The concept may have sounded soft and possibly even a good thing, but it was actually the deadliest thing you could hear. The Door To Light was incredibly critical of people's actions. If anybody had done anything evil at all, no matter how small, and no matter their good deeds, then the Door To Light would erase them completely. If you didn't live up to standards, you were killed. If you escaped all of the destruction that the Door To Light caused, then the last specs of darkness would swallow you up anyway. It was a vicious world.

At first, Isaac had been wondering - what did this all mean? Well, for one thing, it probably meant that the poor Karsath boy had been kidnapped. That part made sense: the doors didn't open for anybody else. You needed a Keyblade and Karsath blood, and the blood part was literal. Many of the Keyblade Bearers in Alex's family had needed to sacrifice their first child to open the Kingdom Hearts. It had happened before. The Door To Darkness, however, had been opened instead, and they were just trying to get to that and close it. Thankfully it was a softer punishment than the Door To Light. Everybody had darkness in their hearts and the Door To Darkness accepted that. It was the Door To Light that didn't.

Secondly, it had been a possibility that Kairi was soon to be discovered. Kairi had been instructed not to send out the alert until the moment she was suspected. Yet she had done so then. Why was that? That was the question he'd asked himself. And now he believed he'd discovered the answers.

Little Sora was both a member of the Faction and Alex's friend. Isaac could recognise that fact now; the uniform wasn't that hard to spot in the wide oblivion where they now all stood, in various positions, but always centred around Sora's body. It was lucky he'd pulled the Princess out of the way before anything too serious could happen. The problem being, Kairi was protective of both Sora and Roxas.

She did it in her own little way, acting distant from them all the time. She didn't want to let the boy (boys?) on. For a while, Isaac hadn't had the ability to guess that she liked either of them. However, when she suddenly started talking about how Sora and Roxas were doing in the Faction obsessively, and becoming very defensive when she mentioned them being reprimanded, it didn't take long for the child genius to figure it out.

And now Sora was dead, killed by her family's enemy. She couldn't see this. She simply couldn't.

KHKHKH

Syaoran began to back away, his father ignorant of what was going on. Right now, all that was on Mr Damashii's mind was to open the Kingdom Hearts. Envy, who was just standing there menacingly and cackling like a witch, would snatch up Alexander as soon as he was prompted and draw his blood for the opening. Heh, opening. It sounded somewhat like they were at a film premiere... combined with some sort of Japanese samurai video game. He wasn't even aware that Kairi had escaped, and neither was Syaoran.

Isaac closed in and snatched up the blue-haired teenager by his pretty white collar. "What happened here?" he snarled. "And don't lie, you Archadian scum."

"Me, _scum_!?" Syaoran muttered. They were too close to his father. If Mr Damashii heard then he'd be dead. He shook his head. "What happened here was justice. If he hadn't been killed here now he would be killed by the Door To Light. We gave him an easier passing."

"Easier passing, my ass," Isaac swore. "You - you killed Sora?"

"My dad did, and I hope he regrets it," Syaoran replied. "I have the strangest feeling that he's going to pay for it."

Isaac held up one hand. Darkness was pulsing around it. "Oh, he's gonna pay for it. I'll make sure he pays for it." Time to avenge Sora for Kairi. It would feel worse if Kairi tried. She couldn't use darkness, and she'd be an easy target if she failed to lay a finger on Mr Damashii. "He'll pay in blood. Sora had to. I'm damn sure he's going to force Alex to. He needs Karsath blood for this, doesn't he?" As Syaoran's expression stayed the same, the Zivaku boy probed further. "Isn't that why your father kidnapped him?"

Syaoran sighed. "Oh, you should know as well as I that he's using Alexander's guilt, not his blood," he explained hurriedly. "Axel was the bait for Roxas, Naminé was the bait for Sora and Joumae and Erica were the bait for Alexander. It's a bloodthirsty chain of events, but all it leads up to is the Lockshield opening the Kingdom Hearts." Syaoran looked at his feet. "It wasn't worth it, was it?"

"No!" Isaac said, wrapping his fingers around Syaoran's neck. The elder choked under the pressure. His fingers were being reinforced with dark energy. "All that the Kingdom Hearts will give to the Archadian empire is ruin. Your world should just give up right now. The Heartless and Nobodies were coming after you guys anyway. Didn't you think that the Nobodies would use you for the Kingdom Hearts?" Then he let go.

Syaoran shook his head, ashamed of himself. Isaac was telling the truth... all this was pointless. Maybe his father's heart, while it was clouded with darkness, didn't see any alternatives to helping their empire. Maybe he was trying to assert his age with his idea of a solution. Heck, maybe he was just insane. But Syaoran wasn't. Syaoran had been raised in an Earth orphanage for the first six years of his life, not in the empire. His only teachings on the empire were from his father. He didn't know if the people were worth saving, as all he'd heard was Archadian propaganda.

But he knew the difference between propaganda and reality. It had to stop. Now.

Syaoran walked over to Sora. Envy's eyes followed him as he walked. He knelt down next to Alex. Erica and Hawk shifted.

The boy looked dead himself as he held on to Sora. If Syaoran had little enough of an ego to get closer, he'd just be able to see that Alex was crying. It had been the first time he'd seen Alex cry. He'd put him through torture. Sure, Alex had screamed. But his eyes hadn't so much as watered from the pain.

Alex was talking. Not to himself, of course. He was talking to Sora, trying to comfort Sora because he knew he wasn't strong himself. Tiny, mumbled words that died as soon as he said them, with whatever amount of conviction they had seemed to have in his head gone as soon as the breath escaped his lips. Words that died like Sora. Wow. Syaoran didn't even find that idea funny anymore. Normally, the Faction members made a spot of fun about Sora and his slightly suicidal attitude, but today-

Today things were just dead. The humour was dead, the words were dead, Sora was dead. And Alex sure as hell looked dead too.

"I don't have a clue what dad just did," Syaoran admitted. "But I do know you were probably the best of friends. And I guess... dad's gotta be brought down." Alex stopped muttering. "Because Sora's gone. And the only thing to do..."

KHKHKH

That was right... Sora was gone. Sora was dead.

...why Sora!?

_Alex, please!_ Hey, was that Joumae? _If you liked him that much, go after his killer, for freak's sake! That'd make sense!_

But there wasn't any sense in the world anymore. Sora shouldn't have been dead. How could he get in the way? There was just half a second. Half a bleeding second! How on earth could he move that fast? And why should he have done so? Alex was a terrible person. He deserved to go.

But Sora didn't...

KHKHKH

Suddenly, Alex stood up, eyes dark and menacing. Syaoran stood too, a determined look on his face. Both of them looked over to Isaac, who nodded. Then they all turned their attention towards the blue-haired man who was increasing the power and width of the laser beam. The same thought flashed through their mind.

Revenge. Syaoran wanted revenge for his treatment. Alex wanted revenge for Sora. Isaac wanted revenge for Kairi. The revenge span in a circle. Kairi would want revenge for Sora. Sora would want revenge for Axel. Axel would want revenge for everything, all the damage that the invasion of his world had caused him. Everything routed directly back to the Kingdom Hearts. It had created everything. So then that routed back to the start of the chain.

Envy noticed all of their glares and approached them, turning back into his original form. "What are you thinking?" he asked. Isaac was nearest. He climbed up onto the back of the laser gun, just as Envy morphed his arm into a sharp point and threw it at him. Isaac then jumped off. The insides of the laser, disrupted, began to spark wildly. Envy was caught in the brief yet powerful shock. He fell down onto the floor, the thick smell of burning pouring off him. As Alex and Erica knew full well, homunculi were only killed by coming close to the remains of their previous bodies. It was a reaction to the original DNA; it paralysed them. Then they could be taken out. They would sick up Red Stones and then die.

However, neither Alex and Erica had such a thing with them. So Envy would stay alive no matter what.

Mr Damashii leapt into the air, hearing the static. He hurried out of his chair to see the eyes on him. Four eyes - Syaoran and Isaac both had one. Ironically, they were on the opposite sides of the face. "Syaoran, son," said Mr Damashii, "remember your alliance?"

"I allied with Sora, you know that," Syaoran retorted. "You did too. I bet you knew all about him being a Heartless and Nobody recombined."

"They weren't 'recombined'," Mr Damashii corrected. "They were split more apart than ever before. Imagine having to talk to the voices in your head for years. Imagine looking in the mirror and always seeing another face. They weren't 'recombined', okay? Roxas was just possessing him."

"Possession?" Syaoran and Isaac both looked startled at Alex. His fists were clenched and his head was bowed. He was talking quietly and threateningly. "You think _Sora_ was the possessed one?"

"I-" Mr Damashii tried to cut in, but Alex wasn't finished yet.

"You try living with the voice in you head and not being sure whether they were ever part of you in the first place. You try looking in the mirror and seeing another person. Not another face, another person entirely. Imagine standing there, the clock ticking away to your downfall, blind, deaf, and then realising that of all the people you could have just attacked, you had to get your own family in the way. If anything, I'm the possessed one." Alex looked up. There was a horrifying yellow glint in his eye. He began stepping forward, footsteps uneven. He was trying not to lash out. This was his self-control kicking in. If there was any form of a beat going on, then he'd be lost and nobody would be able to stop him.

"Now, you imagine living in my shoes." Alex was so close Mr Damashii could feel his breath on his face. Darkness was spinning around the boy's legs, creeping up to circle his waist and relaxing on his face like a mother's touch. "You always thought your best friend since childhood died in an accident because you were too cowardly to save him. Then you suddenly bump into him in school. He doesn't bother trying to explain what happened to him and you feel like an idiot because you always thought he was dead. Next thing you know, you're clinging on as hard as you can. It can't be real, but you want it to be so badly that you never want to let go."

Mr Damashii backed up until he was close to the edge of the platform. Alex continued to come.

"He then turns on you. You're scared. You don't know what's right and what's wrong. You think he wants to kill you because you nearly killed him." Whatever was Alex was fading away. The Lockshield had disappeared completely. Joumae's reflection in the mirror was gone. "You're kidnapped, tortured and faced with somebody who looks exactly like you ordering around somebody who looks exactly like him. You're sick to your stomach. It has to be a dream. You're too close to act like that to each other. You couldn't ever hurt him and he couldn't ever hurt you."

Mr Damashii was pressed against the low wall.

"Finally, that kid who looks exactly like him? It is him. He helps you out, you help him out. And then, last thing you know-" All of Alex's skin was black. His hair was spiked more than usual, and for once it didn't bother him. His eyes were bright yellow and his fingers were clawed. He'd become just like a Heartless. "-some sick _fuck_-" Alex - no, Anti-Alex! It couldn't be Alex, Alex didn't swear! - slapped a hand over the terrified man's mouth. "-takes him away."

They locked glares. Finally, Anti-Alex spoke.

"And do you like that?"

Mr Damashii had no time to scream. Anti-Alex gathered up all his strength and delivered a sharp, high spinning kick to the base of the man's diaphragm. He lost balance and, clumsily grabbing at the edge, dropped down into the black abyss that was, literally, the end of the world. Anti-Alex stepped back from the edge and stumbled back down onto the floor, all black fading away. Once again, the real Alex was crying.


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: Own nothing (but Hawk) and everyhting else owned by respective owners.

* * *

The funeral came soon after. The local church had been surprised to hear that Sora's body had been discovered, having met him a few months ago. There had been enough space below the oak tree for them to dig a grave, and they did so. It was starting to snow the day they had chosen to do it. Sora's body was laid down in a casket while the whole of Alex's class and the people who had witnessed Sora's death stood their quiet vigils besides him. Alex had come, but not near the grave. At first, Erica had scolded him, saying how much of a heartless he was and oh, god, how that simple comment had hurt him so much; but then Alex had given a pointed look to Akiyama.

He wasn't going to talk to Akiyama anymore. They were both plainly guilty of pain to the other, of failure. Alex couldn't protect Sora and Akiyama couldn't protect Erica. Akiyama had gotten Erica kidnapped and Alex had gotten Sora killed. From now on, they couldn't possibly be friends.

After Erica, Umi no Shirube, Hawk, Kairi, Naminé, Isaac and fifteen people from their class had finally dispersed, Gregory and Akiyama hanging back, Derest came over to Alex. "Are you alright?" he asked.

Alex looked away. "'Course not," he growled. "I was the one he was defending. He wouldn't be dead if I hadn't been there."

"Alexander?" The two boys looked back to see Syaoran. He was wearing a large, thick, woolly, forget-me-not-blue jumper that fell down to his knees and grey trousers. Alex hadn't seen him out of uniform before, not even when he had appeared at school that day he had met Umi no Shirube. Somehow, even with that little leather eye-patch, the casual wear suited him. Derest silenced himself and quickly meandered away with a pitying look thrown back at the ex-Lockshield Wielder.

Syaoran stepped closer, but Alex stepped back himself. Meanwhile, he still felt the eyes of Akiyama watching him. He didn't need all this people staring down at him. It was like they were about to kick him while he was on the floor.

Finally, Syaoran gave up the quiet act and turned around. "Alright, then," he said. "I was just going to warn you about the boy with the silver hair."

Alex looked up to the graveside for the first time. Later, he would know exactly what Akiyama had been doing when he had looked. At first, it seemed like Akiyama was praying. His hands pressed together, eyes closed, head bowed and a quick word uttered. The moment the Thunder spell hit him, Alex turned completely numb, and fell back on one of the church's buttresses. Akiyama then delivered Alexander a punch in the face with his left, another to the stomach with his right. Meanwhile, Syaoran stood to the side, watching as his virtual twin was taken apart. A priest ran outside, but as soon as he spotted the problem, he backed away, not wanting to interfere with what was most likely to be a personal fight.

Then Akiyama let up. "That's just what you deserve," he spat, giving Alexander a quick kick to the side while he was lying on the floor. Then he walked away.

Syaoran picked Alex up. "Are you alright?" he enquired.  
Alex immediately pushed away. "Why didn't you help me?" he asked. "Isaac's right. Archadians are snobbish gits who can't hold their own in a fight."

"Well, neither can you, and this is no time to be a hypocrite," Syaoran pointed out. The brunet grumbled under his breath and began twisting the flesh on his arms and hands around. The blue-haired boy frowned as he did so. "I was sent here by Ansem the Wise, Alexander."

The Karsath boy grimaced. "The headmaster."

"Yes." Syaoran looked around the graveyard. A light frost coated the cool, crisp grass. The tiny popsicle-stick cross stood next to a tombstone reading: 'Sora Haley Nomura, 8th July 1993 to 16th October 2007: Better as a friend than as a liar, better as one than as two, better as living than as dead.' Alex must have picked out the eulogy himself. "He wanted me to talk to you about why dad needed you."

"It was because of my blood," Alex said, "right? Didn't you need Karsath blood to open the Kingdom Hearts?"

Syaoran's face oozed unpleasantness. "He already had it." He grabbed the other's hand and took him over to a small bench on the outskirts of the churchyard, where they sat down. "Alex...this is going to make you feel worse, but I have to tell you." He stiffened. "My dad had a relationship seventeen years ago with your mom. There, I said it."

Alex shot up. "W-w-what?" he spluttered.

The other looked glum. "I'd better tell it from the start. It's a long story..." He sighed. "Well, back then, dad was having a temporary residence on Earth, where Archadia had sent him. Earth's apparently got some magic-rich resources in it, and since the hume here haven't touched it, it's at full power. Dad was part of a scouting crew, looking for this magic. Feel unsurprised that the scouting crew came back empty-handed and without dad.

"He went to this club one night... your mom was there with some of her friends. From what dad said, she was a wild card back then." Despite the drama of the moment, Alex couldn't help but snicker a little. Syaoran secretly smiled. He sounded like he was healing a bit. "Well, they got on with each other quite well. After a few weeks knowing each other as friends, dad asked her out. And the first date was great. Second, even better. They were a few months in when they... um..." To Alex, it was strange seeing Syaoran at a loss for words. The first time he'd heard his voice, he had been sarcastic and suave. Now he was calmer. "...They hit it off. Big time."

Alex couldn't stop his mouth from falling open.

"I know, they were crazy. They weren't married, for Lord's sake. In Archadia, it would be illegal." Syaoran was growing quieter. "And what was worse, a few days later, she found out she was pregnant. They knew they'd made a mistake trying that, and that they'd be better off friends. But she wasn't going to get an abortion, either. Your mom was a strong one. She'd go through pain even when it was unnecessary. They decided that, when the baby was born, they'd bring them to an orphanage. And that baby..."

"...was you." Alex finished.

He nodded. "Dad picked me back up from the place when I was six years old. He started telling me all this propaganda about Heartless and Nobodies. And I can't believe now that I actually listened to what he had to say." Syaoran rubbed his forehead. "But now, I think you know why me and Envy were such good friends."

"Half-brothers whose siblings didn't know it," Alex murmured.  
The denim-haired boy looked at him, fingers stuck in his hair. It was only now that Alex noticed those big clumps of hair along the sides of his face. Just like him and Erica. "I didn't mean to keep that from you," he said. "It's just - it's not the kind of thing you tell your enemy. To be raised in the light, and then find out that you're related to a person whose heart is filled with darkness... not good on your Archadian resumé. Dad was going to send me to the army when I turned eighteen. To write that on there would be suicide."

Alex closed his eyes. "Mr Damashii just wanted me there because then he could strike me from the family tree," he concluded. "Great. I wasn't there for any bigger reason. Sora died for nothing."

The elder of the two frowned. "I know he's gone. I know they're both gone. Just be happy that you stopped everybody else from dying when you punished my dad."

Alex closed his eyes, relaxing his tense muscles for the first time that day. "Can you still be my big brother?" he asked, thinking aloud.

Syaoran stopped for a second, giving the softest look he could manage, then continued. "Maybe... get past all the red tape and I could. Adoption papers." He gave Alex a blank look, although he was really saying in his head, _Just cool down. I can try my best. I know how it feels for somebody close to you to die. Maybe not dad, he was never close to me. But my old friends... I'll take care of you best I can._

KHKHKH

Alex opened the door to Naminé's building a few days after the funeral. Things had been going slow lately. He couldn't exactly go back to school until the board of governors had sorted out what to do with all the staff members and students who had been involved in the Hikari Faction had been dealt with, meaning a couple of subjects were cancelled. As such, Alex no longer had a teacher and neither did a lot of the students. In fact, the school had decided that the students had to stay at home while everything was fixed up.

And, for a change, he felt he didn't have to listen to such stiffs. He was surprised at himself, actually. He usually tried to listen to his elders.

With the obvious exception of Sephiros.

As he wandered over through the paintings lazily, the familiar J-Pop pulsing through the room in a peppy, excitable melody, he noticed a series of drawings - scribbles of wax crayon and biro - plastered over a notice board on the wall. He looked around, then stepped forward to look at them.

"Do you like them?"

Alex turned around to see Naminé. Thanks to the break from school, she could start on her next paintings pretty early on. She was kitted out in a stained apron, which covered what looked like her school uniform.

Naminé noticed where his eyes were and smiled bashfully. "I forgot that there was no school," she said. "Anyway, do you like my drawings?"

The boy turned to look at the many scraps held up by push-pins. "They're really cute," he said, his mind on other things. The particular drawing he was referring to was one of Hawk, drawn roughly as if from a little girl's hands. Not really shocking if you remembered what the artist was, but shocking if you knew what she normally could do.

"I'm a lot smoother of hand with a brush than a pencil," she explained.

Alex gave a meek grin and looked around the building. God, he couldn't take his mind off anything that had happened lately… Riku was glaring at him every second, and beating him up again when they were alone. The one thing he normally did was just stand there looking at his feet. It wasn't like he could really do anything else, considering what he had managed to get Sora into. Considering that he'd gotten Sora killed. Damn… damn, damn, _damn_! Not only had he managed to kill his best friend, and not only was his death all too pointless, but he couldn't even swear about it!

He stomped on the floor angrily, just generally ticked off. He was being beaten, his childhood friend was dead, Joumae was gone-

Did I forget to mention _that_!?

"I could help you," Naminé said, catching his attention. "I can see your surrounded in the chains that hold you down."

He looked up, biting his lip. "What chains?" he asked.

The girl looked at him sadly. "The chains of memories. I could remove some links for you… make them less heavy."

"You mean… make me forget?" Alex replied.

Naminé smiled. "It'll take a while, but it'll work in good time."

KHKHKH

Alex lay on the roof of the apartment building quietly, wrapped in three layers of clothing. The past two months had been hell. As if before that hadn't been bad, now he had the worst feelings in the world and nobody to share them with, not even Joumae. He was alone.

Erica walked up the steps of the fire escape. "Alex, come back in," she asked. Neither of the children had stepped out their pyjamas since that morning. "Mom says you can't have any Christmas dinner if you don't come down."

Alex pushed himself up, rubbed his stomach a little, then shook his head softly. "I'm not hungry," he replied offhandedly.

She moaned. "You've got to eat something, Alex," she said. "Come on, it's not as if you can actually devour the wrapping paper. You need traditional yuletide food!"

"I said no," the brother replied, his voice harsher.

She crossed her arms and inflated, just like she had done over four months ago. "I invited everybody over," she said, turning around and peering over her shoulder at him. "If you don't come down right now, I'm pushing you off the building."

"_What_!?"

"Yep, come on, jump!"

Alex blanked. "You're insane," he laughed finally. "You're nuts."

"What kind?" she asked. "I'd like to be chestnuts, but at the same time, I don't want to be chestnuts, because there's chestnuts in the stuffing and I don't want to be in stuffing. I hear stuffing doesn't have a very nice life."

Alex smiled, listening to his sister's weird ranting, and looked up at the sky. All those worlds twinkling, hundreds of miles away... and nobody from Earth was even aware of the vast expanses of the known universe. It made him feel more insignificant and small, knowing how far away human life had spawned as a result of complete coincidence. And he didn't even actually know how far it had reached. Probably, hundreds of millions of miles away, there could be a world for _Sonic the Hedgehog_, or _.hack://_. Or one for the other video games he had on his shelf. Worlds where all his fan-fiction ideas came to life. Possibly a world where he was a work of fiction, too.

Maybe there was even a world where everybody who was dead went to rest forever. Heaven. He wanted to go there, if it did exist. Then he could see Sora again. But maybe Sora didn't want to see him, because then Axel would be in heaven too and... Yeah. Confusing and sad. Poor Alexander Ephiram Karsath wasn't sure that even his best friend in the whole wide world would stay his best friend in death.

After a few minutes, Hawk climbed up the fire escape.

"Come on, Alex..." he said.

Alex ignored him. "Erica... what do you think really happened to Joumae and the other you?" he asked. "Where did they really go?"

Erica walked over and sat down next to Alex. "Well... the Door To Darkness was holding them back," she said. "We couldn't be whole with it open. But then it was closed and that split finally sealed back up."

"...So... does that mean you're both of them now?" he asked the girl. For a few seconds he swore he could see the other Erica hiding in his sister's face. For those same few seconds, Erica swore she could see Joumae in her brother's. "You're two people still?"

"I'm the same person," Erica corrected, "and so are you. I'm not sure Joumae is really gone - well, the 'dead' kind of gone. I'm pretty certain he just fused with you or something like that. After that big door closed, I felt darkness drifting away, like I was losing a friend, but I also felt light. And, well..." The girl began fussing with the sleeves of her nightgown. There was a quick glint of a darker, sharper brown in her eyes. "I've kinda felt empty inside since then. But I already know that there shouldn't be anything to stop us feeling whole. Maybe it's just because we kinda remember feeling them there, and it doesn't feel right to feel alone like this. Probably we just forgot what it's like to not have a voice in our heads or something silly like that."

Hawk flew over, miffed. "Hey, listen!" he said, quoting Navi. "Come on! Alex, you've been sitting here all day! Literally! Come down, we've got some presents for you!"

Alex looked back. "I can't possibly feel better because of some material goods, Hawk," he said, sinking back down onto the concrete roof. "My perfect present would be to ressurrect Sora and Axel, and make them feel one-hundred percent better. I'd take care of them... I wouldn't fail them. That'd be my perfect present."

Hawk sank. "You just want them back, don't you?" he muttered, then shook his head. "Well, we don't have the perfect present for you, but... if you come downstairs, we can tell you."

"No," Alex said resolutely.

The sprite sighed. "Okay, okay..." He flew away. "_O, little town of Bethlehem_..."

Alex looked up at the stars again. "..._how still we see thee lie. Upon thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by._" It was sort of true. The city of Portland sat near the edge of the state of Oregon, never noticing the other worlds, the Heartless, the Nobodies... never noticing anybody, just like in a dreamless sleep. And while in this sleep the stars hung up in the inky black sky, simply little dots of light, hard to see in all the darkness. And the moon wasn't heart-shaped, either. That felt like a relief. At least he had done something right.

Erica sighed and, with Hawk, went back down to the flat. There was the sound of crackers being pulled below him.

Hours passed, and Alex was finally feeling hungry. He stood up, listening to his stomach growl, and finally let out a sweet laugh. Nowadays, laughter sounded completely foreign to his ears. He should have remembered - Christmas was a time for family. But Joumae had felt a bit like family himself... having a happy Christmas Day without him, without part of his family, just felt wrong inside.

Yeah, right, since when was that git doing any more than possessing him?

He stopped, just as he was about to go back down. There was a medium-sized box on the floor, topped with a little bow. He picked it up and opened it. There was a watch on top of some kind of form. He pulled them out and read the top - these were adoption papers. He looked along them and saw the name, then checked the watch.

23:00.

Syaoran was an incredibly sly dog.

"But soon Naminé's plan will be complete," Alex said to himself as he looked at the papers. "What's Syaoran going to do then?"


End file.
